White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson

huge palm under her head, the Giant lifted her into a half-sitting posture. Carefully he raised the mouth of his flask to her lips.
    Liquid dribbled from the corners of her mouth. In dismay, Covenant saw that she was not swallowing. Her chest rose as she inhaled; but no gag-reflex prevented her from breathing the potent liquor.
    At the sight, his mind went white with fire. The hysteria of venom and power coursed through his muscles—keen argent fretted with reminders of midnight and murder. He thrust Pitchwife away as if the Giant were a child.
    But he dared not try to reach heat into Linden. Without any health-sense to guide him, he would be more likely to kill than warm her. Swallowing flame, he wrenched her onto her side, hit her once between the shoulder blades, twice, hoping to dislodge the fluid from her lungs. Then he pressed her to her back again, tilted her head as he had been taught, clasped shut her nose, and with his mouth over hers started breathing urgently down her throat.
    Almost at once, effort and restraint made him dizzy. He no longer knew how to find the still point of strength in the center of his whirling fears. He had no power to save her life except the one he could not use.
    “Giantfriend.” Hearthcoal’s voice came from a great distance. “Here is a stewpot able to hold her.”
    Covenant’s head jerked up. For an instant, he gaped incomprehension at the cook. Then he rapped out, “Fill it!” and clamped his mouth back over Linden’s.
    A muffled thunder of water poured into the huge stone pot. Wind shrieked in the hawseholes, plucked juddering ululations from the shrouds. Around Covenant, the galley began to spin. Head up: inhale. Head down: exhale. He had no way to keep his balance except with fire. In another moment, he was going to erupt or lose consciousness, he did not know which.
    Then Seasauce said, “It is ready.” Pitchwife touched Covenant’s shoulder. Scooping his arms under Linden, Covenant tried to unknot his cramped muscles, stand erect.
    Starfare’s Gem brunted through the crest of a wave and dove for the trough. Unable to steady himself, be pitched headlong toward the wall.
    Hands caught him. Mistweave held him while Pitchwife pulled Linden from his embrace.
    He was giddy and irresistible with fire. He jerked away from Mistweave, followed Pitchwife toward the stove on which sat the oblong stewpot. The floor seemed to yaw viciously, but he kept moving.
    The stovetop was as high as his chin. He could see nothing of Linden past the pot’s rim except a crown of hair as Seasauce held her head above water. But he no longer needed to see her. Pressing his forehead against the base of the stewpot, he spread his arms as far as possible along its sides. The guts of the stove were aflame; but that heat would take too long to warm so much stone and water. Closing his eyes against the ghoul-whirl of his vertigo, he let wild magic pour down his arms.
    This he could do safely. He had learned enough control to keep his power from tearing havoc through the galley. And Linden was buffered from his imprecise touch. 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.
    For a time, he was conscious only of the current of his power, squeezing heat into the stone but not breaking it, not tearing the fragile granite into rubble. Then suddenly he realized that he could hear Linden coughing. He looked up. She was invisible to him, hidden by the sides of the pot and the steam pluming thickly into the air. But she was coughing, clearing her lungs more strongly with every spasm. And a moment later one of her hands came out of the vapor to clutch at the lip of the pot.
    “It is enough,” Pitchwife was saying. “Giantfriend, it is enough. More heat will harm her.”
    Covenant nodded dumbly. With a deliberate effort, he released his power.
    At once, he recoiled, struck by