TCTC: Guilt Chapter 2

Fandom: The 2nd Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Romance

Revised 01-2013

Notes: This story is set in the past of Pitchwife and Gossamer Glowlimn (The First of the Search), about a year or two after the death of her father, and traces its origins to the tale he narrates Linden aboard Starfare's Gem.

I've understood that the custom of their culture is to change one's personal name, at least partially, upon life-altering events (f. ex. Latebirth beginning to call herself Lax Blunderfoot in Fatal Revenant). The names used in Wounded Land and onwards appeared to me like something both would have adopted after their marriage, which is why I've decided to call them something else, while yet striving to avoid anything out-of-character. Hence, Pitchwife is named Crookback and Gossamer Mourn Kinsloss, the latter of which I thought appropriate for someone who had just lost the last member of her family. Aside from this tweak, have tried to keep them in character.

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Chapter II


A trice later, Crookback had gained the rather miserable comfort of a vaulted gateway. It exited to one of the paved outdoor lanes meandering between various rocky hilltops and towering Giant-dwellings, some of which had been fashioned into wild, whimsical shapes according to the quirks of their stonewrights. The almost pitch-black heavens were hurling down torrents of frigid rain at a forty-five-degree angle, while a wind just as hostile howled through the passages, shifting direction in unexpected junctions and tossing sprays of muddied water up from gutters and random pools. Baring his teeth against the storm, the night reminded him with altogether too much vividness of the notorious hours aboard Wavedancer.

Ah, the pointless drama of it all. Wherefore did the welkins always have to throw a fit when something dire was astir? The vista lacked only the obligatory bolts of lightning. Granted, soddenness and freezing winds posed no threat to the massive Giantish vitality, yet he still did not relish the idea of trudging all the way to his chambers with such weather sombering his mood even further.

Something seemed a trifle amiss with the wide worlds anyhow: these unseasonal, icy downpours spoiled crops and rendered the sail-roads perilous. On occasion, some kind of ill, miasmic mist crept up the Western cliffs when the clouds rolled in, making gulls abandon their nests and the odd dead fish slam ashore afterwards. He wondered whether this pestilence lodged into the corners of his lungs somehow pertained to that ominous phenomenon. Giants seldom fell sick, but, as of late, he did not appear to be the sole person mimicking a broken bellows.

He regarded a cluster of trees atop a cliff, tossed hither and thither by the blasts, wondering whether he might just stand here for a while and tiptoe back down the stairwell afterwards to see if the plight had passed. If he...well... Nay. Plodding back home now meant nothing else but subjecting himself to the accusing glares of dead Gnarlfist and the gyrating memory of his one surge of hope bursting apart. Leastways, here he could tarry for a while in the company of friends, even if tonight once again proved that even this refuge for a wailing spirit lacked lockable doors and window-shutters. Somehow, the nightmares just wormed in via little cracks in his attention, until focus became lost and they attacked as one tsunami of malevolence.

And...she... She...

Something twisted his heartstrings again, making him claw at the front of his garment in his acute pain. The attack passed as soon as it had begun, however, and Crookback regained his strength with minimal coughing.

A morose glare sullying his mien, he glanced at the dark doorway and the winding staircase beyond, through which he had climbed up onto the lane. Well...perchance the fact that it had required him a moment to recognize her represented not such a mystery. The lass had gained some weight since the previous trial by the docks, where he, by a whim of luck, had just avoided colliding with her. Moreover, she wore her hair in a different fashion, and had somewhere—mayhap from the novel way of life—received an ugly, now half-healed, bruise around one eye. The rosy-cheeked glow that the sun and brisk sea-winds had once bestowed upon her had waned; she now wore the pallor of someone who spent most of her hours inside.

And by gods, that frown...that frown of loss still etched on her beautiful, young face, denunciation writ all over it... Yet that Mourn Kinsloss had decided to don the armor of a trainee Swordmain hurt him perhaps the most right now. Aye, he did not need to ponder the secrets of these warriors' mental workings any longer: the cadre served as a circle for embittered, darkened souls who had lost—

All of a sudden, Crookback heard the clamor of running footsteps reverberating from the stairwell. He spun, his breath steaming in the clammy air. What...was someone after him? How...how long had he shilly-shallied here, stuck between rain and his meandering thoughts? Perhaps mere moments, but time enough for—

In growing trepidation, he realized that someone was shouting his name through the thud of advancing footfalls. Without a backward glance, Crookback scurried into the lashing rain and up a lane that vanished into the shadows between two silent buildings. Gah, what a fool he was! Why, why had he decided to lollygag there akin to some addlepated slug, when the ill premonition that Mourn Kinsloss might be after him had grown in his heart with every step? Of course, the voice in the passage might have belonged to Highflame's daughter, but while female for certain, it yet rang too deep and sharp.

Rain pouring into his eyes and dripping from his hair now lying lank and sodden across his scalp, he squinted into the gloom in desperation, seeking some side passage that might, just might provide him a suitable hidey-hole and lead the pursuers astray. The downpour had drenched his sark and was working its way through the seams of his hose after a few hundred meters. He pounded past walls carved with huge, knotted motifs of serpents and ships, yet never spotted a suitable getaway, every inhale and exhale rattling in his lungs.

Not wasting time to peek over his shoulder, the Giant was nonetheless certain that someone was halloing through the hiss and howl of the elements, still in pursuit of him.

What the bloody barnacles did Mourn Kinsloss want from him? Did she mayhap desire to inflict some appalling judgment upon him? Well...gods knew he deserved it, but...but... Giants never butchered their countrymen without proper trials and Giantclaves, did they? Even then, death sentences were unheard of, banishing or wergild serving as the ultimate punishments.

His reason was blithering.

Nevertheless...what if, what if those berserks were a law unto themselves; had he not witnessed the degree of bloodshed they were capable of with but callous sternness shining on their visages?

Crookback's bowels roiled with mingled consternation and old guilt. Pressing the tips of his thick fingers hard against his chest, he tried suppressing a new burst of coughing yearning for an outlet. Prithee let it pass, let it pass, he could not collapse now, not now...

Yet...if he believed he deserved his fate, wherefore could he not face it? Was he indeed such a bloody, pointless coward that he would not be able to meet his own trial, should his pursuers wish to drag him before the Giantclave instead of decapitating him on the spot?

His every heartbeat thumped in his ears. The sound felt unnaturally loud against the backdrop of his stertorous gurgling and the roar of rain.

He. Was. Not. A. Bloody. Pointless. Coward. NAY. He had wrestled with ships on the verge of utter wreckage, saved many a Giant from drowning during his 650 years of existence, even kept fellow dockworkers from becoming mangled beneath falling cargo and whatnot. Like the other week, while during his wiving he had spotted a stone crate with one fraying cable being lifted past his scaffold. He had jumped and hauled himself up four levels to reach the hazardous load a mere twinkling before the cable had snapped, grabbled with the ends, and held them together with the main strength of his massive hands ere proper help had reached the spot. Without this intervention, the crate would have plummeted and crashed straight into the pier and the seafarers below.

Hence, why this act of cravenness, considering that—

Crookback's reasoning had, nonetheless, pulled this single thought out of the swamps of his gloominess too late. It sunk back into the depths on the instant a convulsion of coughing forceful enough to bend him double exploded out of his throat. He sank onto his knees upon the cold, wet flagstones, a hideous pain wringing his chest, involuntary tears beginning to prickle in the corners of his eyes. He had managed to crest a high hill in his bout of hysteria. A rain-blurred valley of Giant-dwellings, copses, and twinkling lights spread out in front of him, the lane now turning into descending stone steps.

Through the ache, Crookback however beheld his ghosts alone. Gnarlfist's dead, accusing face appeared to ripple into being from the shadows of the houses, raggedy trees, and the boiling storm clouds above. Heinous and wrathful, it loomed over him, a rotting mouth twisted into a horrible jeer, its gaping eye sockets awash with cruel mirth as the Giant coughed and spluttered, and, in the end, dropped onto his elbows, unable to draw a single raggedy breath as he seemed to suffocate to an inundation of sticky sputum. His heart trashed around in his chest, feeling ready to rip free of its moorings. A screechy ringing began swelling in his ears: The souls of the forever lost cavorting around Wavedancer's rigging called his name, belabored him for all his failures, lashed him with their taunts...

He could not breathe.

Was he going to drown here in the downpour, beneath Gnarlfist's brooding sneer and the frolicking phantasms? Had the deceased Master of Wavedancer come to collect his debts?

"Over here! Make haste!"

Crookback had just begun to register the shouting and clatter of footsteps trough the muffle of rain, when something thumped him hard between the shoulder blades. This was repeated a few times. However, just as someone was wrapping their arms tight around his midriff, about to lift him up, the glob of phlegm obstructing his airways shot free. With one huge gasp, the Giant was able to inhale again. The cinch around his abdomen loosened, leaving him panting and spitting out saliva on all fours upon the flagstones. This did not endure long, however. As soon as his breathing had evened a whit, a dark figure crouched beside him, lifted one of his arms over its shoulders, and started pulling him up with slow care. The same was repeated on his other side.

Brittleness lining every spoken word, the first person asked, "Are you able to walk? We ought to get away from this demented weather, ere the whole welkin caves in."

"Oh aye," the rather nasal voice of Highflame's daughter snapped from his left, "Some big lummox of a god has drank anew too much holy spirits and needs to relieve himself upon our poor, mortal bone-houses. I do not desire to dawdle here either, lest something might find itself into my mouth. Look, Wisecrack Crookback, what aggrieves you? In all sooth, some ill humor has overtaken you; wherefore do you thus shun the aid of your friends? You have been an utter shipwreck for weeks, nay, months, and now this foolish venture! Now, hie, ere some other bugger up yon joins the erst on a heavenly pissing contest!"

In his stupefaction, Crookback could find no adequate response. He only recorded that the woman's insane hair stood erect even against the deluge. Giving a few mute nods, tears of pain still stinging in his eyes, he shifted his regard to his right.

There, he found himself staring straight up at the sharp, deep blue frown of Mourn Kinsloss.



* * *


The trio trudged on for a while in sullen silence, the rain unceasing to pummel the landscapes. Both ashamed and weary of the day's outcome, Crookback contented himself with staring at his shuffling feet.

Oh, aye...he ought to have treated his comrades with a smidgen more confidence, and at least attempted speaking his mind. And yet, yet... Would not the shadows redouble, Gnarlfist's wrath turn even more feral, should he spill out—

In his fatigue, he could not begin to guess.

In the meanwhile, some part of his mind felt grateful for the aid the two women had provided. A gray cloud of embarrassment however blotted out even this positive feeling. Throughout his life, he had desired to act and appear like any regular Giant despite his disabilities—many people treated him with more or less unwitting pity. With some gingerness, he accepted this and never berated anyone about it, yet the matter always left a certain sour taste in his heart, a heart seeking for equality instead of special care. Well...regarding the gentleness and tolerance of the Giantish race, he could have freewheeled without a profession by accepting the tending of others. However, since his skull harbored something more useful than crusted snow within, and his hands were nimble and crafty, he had pursued goals where his odd size might become an advantage. Pitchwiving, in which he, in the ripeness of time, had become a fair adept, had served as one of the best options.

Now, however, he became again reminded of his, well, meagerness, compared to other Giants. Both arms slung over the shoulders of the Giantesses the level of whose armpits his scalp just reached, he had to hobble on with his knees bent to balance the odd angle and bulk of his torso. Canes he detested with the acerbity of unripe lemons. The hushed progress made him also too aware of the annoying wheeze and rasp of his constricted lungs. The two women had not so much as panted when they had reached him. In normal circumstances, he would not have fretted over the nearness of two or three such comely Giantesses. For one thing, his point of view added some quite pleasant vistas to his proximity, in particular if the companions chose to wear something lighter than kirtles formed of interlocking granite disks.

Close to the stairwell to Furdlesail's Firepot, Mourn broke the silence. Something akin to sadness or tiredness made the edges of her voice fray, as she murmured, "You do ken that, in a fashion, you brought this upon yourself."

First Crookback believed she referred to the very topic he had dreaded, but the Giantess went on, "Wherefore are you avoiding me akin to this? Many a time have I tried reaching you, yet always you manage bilking me by some devilish stratagem. Forsooth, I can fathom no other reason for this foolish chase, which thus brought you onto the brink of suffocating, than yet another attempt at shaking me off."

Crookback sighed, and muttered something half-inaudible, not daring meet her eyes. His heart seemed to wallow somewhere in the very bottom of his gut. The other woman refrained from commenting, perhaps understanding that some very intimate issues were afoot here.

"Look. I do nay ken with certainty what hurt and misconceptions your heart hides within itself, but this must be brought to an end. We must sit down and talk—not tomorrow, not a score of days hence, but now, or as soon as you are feeling restored enough. I shall sit tight and wait right here, e'en bloody well persevere unto Stone and Sea have melted together, if I must."

Some portion of Crookback's mind hesitated. He had expected instant rebuke, and acrimony of a different nature, but not such an outpouring. Nevertheless, he kept his gaze rooted to the ground, not able to dredge up enough courage to meet Mourn's expression. They then gained the shelter of the gateway, and marched down the stairs. Upon the lowest landing, the Swordmain requested Highflame's daughter to yield the burden of Crookback's arm.

"I deem I can take it hence. I am most grateful of your aid," Mourn nodded to her. "Would you, in your kindness, fetch someone here who might show us a comfortable chamber where to rest? Refreshment and something with which to dry ourselves would also serve us well. I swear, at this rate of rain and humidity, I shall soon have ducks swimming in my helmet and frogs hopping out of the joints of my breastplate."

After a moment, the two women and another Giant carrying towels ushered Crookback into a cozy, barrel-vaulted room, the likes of which were reserved for travelers or the occasional diamondraught enthusiast who needed to sleep his head clear after too much merriment. Ribs aching after the struggles with breathing, he dragged himself onto a bench, and dared to glimpse at the person who had haunted his consciousness ever since that fateful night. In another corner, she was swearing aloud and unclasping various pieces of stone mail armor, laying each part down upon squares of linen to drip and dry. Therewith, Crookback agnized how the cloudburst had soaked also his clothing. Sitting became a discomfort when one's braies felt more akin to a dwelling for deepwater fish than one's own, snug privates. He grimaced at the amount of pooling mire and miscellaneous pieces of debris he had managed to spread on the floor. Not that Mourn was performing much better with all the water spilling out of the recesses of her battle gear, and, somewhere past the doorway, his second helper was turning a section of corridor into a veritable mud bath. Even so, the filth combined with his own squalid state stretched his lopsided grimace even wider.

Aye, aye, it appeared that all the good fortunes of the high skies and broad horizons had forfeited him today, spattering him with naught but hurt and shame. Now, he would have to tackle all the resentment and reproach her soul had hitherto amassed, face head-on the blame burdening his bent back. In his mind, her kind-sounding words were turning into nothing but a mask to hide her anger. Perchance she did not wish to flare into full rage in such a public place. Yet when the doors clanged shut, all the wrath of the Soulbiter would without doubt lunge at him. Forsooth, what other reason would Mourn Kinsloss have—

At this point, Crookback erupted into another paroxysm of coughing.

Henceforth, resistance proved as bootless as trying to teach rigging techniques to a trilobite. The towel-bringer tutted and hissed through his teeth at the combined welter of mud, waterlogged paraphernalia, and Crookback's ill state. After forcing diamondraught down their throats, he carted them into the bathhouse. The uncomfortable speechlessness stretched as they huddled in the steam room, the glum, malformed Giant listening to the tumultuous bragging of three Northmen occupying the highest benches. They kept smacking one another's backs with bundles of birch branches, tossed bucketfuls of water just about every other second onto the mound of hot rocks sitting in a niche on the floor, and sloshed so much liquor everywhere that the chamber smelled of a mixture of birch sap and fermented willowherb. The ferocity of the heat and humidity would have flayed any lesser creature, but could no more than flick the stalwart Giantish flesh.

The Northmen's offer to bathe Crookback's companions in exchange for a few hornfuls of drink, some kisses, and mayhap a story or two blew some fleeting life into the atmosphere. Mourn refused with a stiff jerk of her head, but Highflame's daughter jumped straight into the sport with a quizzical smirk.

When Crookback became fed up with scrutinizing the texture of his knees and found no ripostes suitable to answer the good-natured slapstick, and, well, slapping of birch sticks, commencing on the upper benches, he, with careful furtiveness, studied Mourn for a while through the mild haze of vapor. Odd, how he should possess such courage, considering how the mere illusion of her visage had so racked his innards. Yet, well...nothing was trotting into the expected direction. Mayhap this conceived the tiny flicker of fortitude.

Kinsloss leaned against the hot, wooden planks, eyes closed, her arms folded across her lap. She did not appear prepared to rip a throat open in mouth-frothing frenzy. Weariness underlined her whole posture, and she seemed predisposed to naught else but to melt out cramps and aches from her muscles. Crookback's misaligned brows knotted at the sight of more fresh bruises, one of the most colorful specimens running down the right side of her ribs, as if a blunted blade had struck her. It was obvious that the Swordmainnir did not wreathe flowers into winsome bouquets during their training. Hence, no wonder the elder warriors, survivors of hundreds of years of heavy combat, looked like something where all the scars of the wide worlds collected to greet one another.

Mourn abruptly opened her eyes, and, as if by instinct, caught his gaze head-on. He winced, yet was held fixed by the intensity of her frown, even when his heart desired to sink through the floor and deep into the abysses of the bedrock, nevermore to crawl out. To his befuddlement, not a drop of rancor glinted therein, but lingering hurt mixed with a shade of some sentiment he could not put his finger on.

"Well, it seems that you have leastwise learned that I am indeed a woman beneath all that stone mail, and not a boulder of flint. That is sooth," she sighed. Her tone did not, however, imply sarcasm, but profound sadness.

Crookback seldom blushed. Prior to Wavedancer's misfortunes, he had been the half-inane swaggerer who pulled jests out of his sleeves every other minute and sometimes followed his shipmates around, teasing and mock-imitating them till they slapped at their thighs in snorting mirth. Due to the hour's awkwardness, however, his face gained the color of an overripe beetroot. Grimacing, he pressed one palm over his eyes, nigh-on wishing that she would magic her blade out of the thin air and halt his embarrassment and guilt on this very instant with a single, steely slice.

Gods, did she deem that he had stared at... Auugh, he had not even thought that... Gah, one did not goggle at anyone akin to that in a steam room; that custom had prevailed for tens of thousands of years! How could he explain—

Mourn, however, sighed again, as if his demeanor had intensified her weariness. "Look. Mayhap you ought to get one of those proper steam room baths also. It might aid you to banish those ill humors from your body." She reached out to touch the fretting Crookback's shoulder, and pointed to the upmost bench where a Northman, with so much chest hair one might have knitted three and a half human-sized tunics from it, dipped one of the birch branch bundles into a pail, and began applying it to the Giantess's back. Violence or personal kinks played no part in this; the whole show equaled a good scrubbing. From another Giant, the bather had recovered a stoneware pot full of some thick, fragrant ointment, and was proceeding to rub it onto her arms.

"They tell up in the Northern passes that the Fire-Father's wife protects these slim trees, and thus a trace of his spirit lingers in their very essence. I have learned there is healing in their touch, when the steam and heat of the sweat room release this concealed vitality from their green leaves. The Northmen state we sissified Southerners do not ken how to honor the rites of bathing, and in that they are sooth."

Crookback blinked in surprise. Naught made sense here, did it? Wherefore would Mourn Kinsloss seek a soothing for his ailments, if some final trial awaited him? Or did she, as he half expected, nurture reproach beyond a facade of false kindness, ready to explode into scorn as soon as he accepted anything? He could not tell. Still unable to untie the knots binding his customary garrulity, he frowned in turn at Kinsloss and the raucous Northmen.

"And, as a token of gratitude, they probably will not require you to kiss them. I would venture to guess that a few drinks will suffice," Mourn added in a glum tone. "Nevertheless be forewarned: I am not letting you out of my sight. I have not tailed you through crowds and storm and what nigh-on became your own demise to become thwarted anew."

Crookback could not decipher the meaning of that last statement, yet it filled him with foreboding.