Thomas Covenant 01: Lord Foul's Bane Page 25

  When he reached the door, Bannor gave his torch to the Hirebrand. The Hirebrand quenched it by humming a snatch of song and closing his hand over the flame. Then he returned the rod to Bannor, and the Bloodguard entered the enclosure with Covenant behind him.

  Covenant found himself on a balcony circling the inside of an enormous cavity. It held no lights, but illumination streamed into it from all the open doors, and there were six more balconies above the one on which Covenant stood, all accessed by many open doors. He could see clearly. The balconies stood in vertical tiers, and below them, more than a hundred feet down, was the flat bottom of the cavity. A dais occupied one side, but the rest of the bottom was full of people. The balconies also were full, but relatively uncrowded; everyone had a full view of the dais below.

  Sudden dizziness beat out of the air at Covenant’s head. He clutched at the chest-high railing, braced his laboring heart against it. Revelstone seemed full of vertigoes; everywhere he went, he had to contend with cliffs, gulfs, abysms. But the rail was reassuring granite. Hugging it, he fought down his fear, looked up to take his eyes away from the enclosure bottom.

  He was dimly surprised to find that the cavity was not open to the sky; it ended in a vaulted dome several hundred feet above the highest balcony. The details of the ceiling were obscure, but he thought he could make out figures carved in the stone, giant forms vaguely dancing.

  Then the light began to fail. One by one, the doors were being shut; as they closed, darkness filled the cavity like recreated night. Soon the enclosure was sealed free of light, and into the void the soft moving noises and breathing of the people spread like a restless spirit. The blackness seemed to isolate Covenant. He felt as anchorless as if he had been cast adrift in deep space, and the massive stone of the Keep impended over him as if its sheer brute tonnage bore personally on the back of his neck. Involuntarily he leaned toward Bannor, touched the solid Bloodguard with his shoulder.

  Then a flame flared up on the dais—two flames, a lillianrill torch and a pot of graveling. Their lights were tiny in the huge cavity, but they revealed Birinair and Tohrm standing on either side of the dais, holding their respective fires. Behind each Hearthrall were two blue-robed figures—Lord Mhoram with an ancient woman on his arm behind Birinair, and a woman and an old man behind Tohrm. And between these two groups stood another man robed in blue. His erect carriage denied the age of his white hair and beard. Intuitively Covenant guessed, That’s him—High Lord Prothall.

  The man raised his staff and struck its metal three times on the stone dais. He held his head high as he spoke, but his voice remembered that he was old. In spite of bold carriage and upright spirit, there was a rheumy ache of age in his tone as he said, “This is the Vespers of Lord’s Keep—ancient Revelstone, Giant-wrought bourne of all that we believe. Be welcome, strong heart and weak, light and dark, blood and bone and thew and mind and soul, for good and all. Set Peace about you and within you. This time is consecrate to the services of the Earth.”

  His companions responded, “Let there be healing and hope, heart and home, for the Land, and for all people in the services of the Earth—for you before us, you direct participants in Earthpower and Lore, lillianrill and rhadhamaerl, learners, Lorewardens, and warriors—and for you above us, you people and daily carers of the hearth and harvest of life—and for you among us, you Giants, Bloodguard, strangers—and for you absent Ranyhyn and Ramen and Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin, all brothers and sisters of the common troth. We are the Lords of the Land. Be welcome and true.”

  Then the Lords sang into the darkness of the sacred enclosure. The Hearthrall fires were small in the huge, high, thronged sanctuary—small, and yet for all their smallness distinct, cynosural, like uncorrupt courage. And in that light the Lords sang their hymn.

  Seven Wards of ancient Lore

  For Land’s protection, wall and door:

  And one High Lord to wield the Law

  To keep all uncorrupt Earth’s Power’s core.

  Seven Words for ill’s despite—

  Banes for evil’s dooming wight:

  And one pure Lord to hold the Staff

  To bar the Land from Foul’s betraying sight.

  Seven hells for failed faith,

  For Land’s betrayers, man and wraith:

  And one brave Lord to deal the doom

  To keep the blacking blight from Beauty’s bloom.

  As the echo of their voices faded, High Lord Prothall spoke again. “We are the new preservers of the Land—votaries and handservants of the Earthpower; sworn and dedicated to the retrieval of Kevin’s Lore, and to the healing of the Earth from all that is barren or unnatural, ravaged, foundationless, or perverse. And sworn and dedicated as well, in equal balance with all other consecrations and promises—sworn despite any urging of the importunate self—to the Oath of Peace. For serenity is the only promise we can give that we will not desecrate the Land again.”

  The people standing before the dais replied in unison, “We will not redesecrate the Land, though the effort of self-mastery wither us on the vine of our lives. Nor will we rest until the shadow of our former folly is lifted from the Land’s heart, and the darkness is whelmed in growth and life.”

  And Prothall returned, “But there is no withering in the service of the Land. Service enables service, just as servility perpetuates debasement. We may go from knowledge to knowledge, and to still braver knowledge, if courage holds, and commitment holds, and wisdom does not fall under the shadow. We are the new preservers of the Land—votaries and handservants to the Earthpower.

  For we will not rest—

  not turn aside,

  lose faith,

  or fail—

  until the Gray flows Blue,

  and Rill and Maerl are as new and clean

  as ancient Llurallin.”

  To this the entire assembly responded by singing the same words, line by line, after the High Lord; and the massed communal voice reverberated in the sacred enclosure as if his rheumy tone had tapped some pent, subterranean passion. While the mighty sound lasted, Prothall bowed his head in humility.

  But when it was over, he threw back his head and flung his arms wide as if baring his breast to a denunciation. “Ah, my friends!” he cried. “Handservants, votaries of the Land—why have we so failed to comprehend Kevin’s Lore? Which of us has in any way advanced the knowledge of our predecessors? We hold the First Ward in our hands—we read the script, and is much we understand the words—and yet we do not penetrate the secrets. Some failure in us, some false inflection, some mistaken action, some base alloy in our intention, prevents. I do not doubt that our purpose is pure—it is High Lord Kevin’s purpose—and before him Loric’s and Damelon’s and Heartthew’s—but wiser, for we will never lift our hands against the Land in mad despair. But what, then? Where are we wrong, that we cannot grasp what is given to us?”

  For a moment after his voice faltered and fell, the sanctuary was silent, and the void throbbed like weeping, as if in his words the people recognized themselves, recognized the failure he described as their own. But then a new voice arose. Saltheart Foamfollower said boldly, “My Lord, we have not reached our end. True, the work of our lifetime has been to comprehend and consolidate the gains of our forebears. But our labor will open the doors of the future. Our children and their children will gain because we have not lost heart, for faith and courage are the greatest gift that we can give to our descendants. And the Land holds mysteries of which we know nothing mysteries of hope as well as of peril. Be of good heart, Rockbrothers. Your faith is precious above all things.”

  But you don’t have time! Covenant groaned. Faith! Children! Foul is going to destroy you. Within him, his conception of the Lords whirled, altered. They were not superior beings, fate-shapers; they were mortals like himself, familiar with impotence. Foul would reave them—

  For an instant, he released the railing as if he meant to cry out his message of doom to the gathered people. But at once
vertigo broke through his resistance, pounced at him out of the void. Reeling, he stumbled against the rail, then fell back to clutch at Bannor’s shoulder.

  —that the uttermost limit of their span of days upon the Land—

  He would have to read them their death warrant.

  “Get me out of here,” he breathed hoarsely. “I can’t stand it.”

  Bannor held him, guided him. Abruptly a door opened into the brilliance of the outer corridor. Covenant half fell through the doorway. Without a word, Bannor refit his torch at one of the flaming brands set into the wall. Then he took Covenant’s arm to support him.

  Covenant threw off his hand. “Don’t touch me,” he panted inchoately. “Can’t you see I’m sick?”

  No flicker of expression shaded Bannor’s flat countenance. Dispassionately he turned and led Covenant away from the sacred enclosure.

  Covenant followed, bent forward and holding his stomach as if he were nauseated.—that the uttermost limit—How could he help them? He could not even help himself. In confusion and heart distress, he shambled back to his room in the tower, stood dumbly in the chamber while Bannor replaced his torch and left, closing the door like a judgment behind him. Then he gripped his temples as if his mind were being torn in two.

  None of this is happening, he moaned. How are they doing this to me?

  Reeling inwardly, he turned to look at the arras as if it might contain some answer. But it only aggravated his distress, incensed him like a sudden affront. Bloody hell! Berek, he groaned. Do you think it’s that easy? Do you think that ordinary human despair is enough, that if you just feel bad enough something cosmic or at least miraculous is bound to come along and rescue you? Damn you! he’s going to destroy them! You’re just another leper outcast unclean, and you don’t even know it!

  His fingers curled like feral claws, and he sprang forward, ripping at the arras as if he were trying to rend a black lie off the stone of the world. The heavy fabric refused to tear in his half-unfingered grasp, but he got it down from the wall. Throwing open the balcony, he wrestled the arras out into the crimson tainted night and heaved it over the railing. It fell like a dead leaf of winter.

  I am not Berek!

  Panting at his effort, he returned to the room, slammed the partition shut against the bloody light. He threw off his robe, put on his own underwear, then extinguished the fires and climbed into bed. But the soft, clean touch of the sheets on his skin gave him no consolation.

  FOURTEEN: The Council of Lords

  He awoke in a dull haze which felt like the presage of some thunderhead, some black boil and white fire blaring. Mechanically he went through the motions of readying himself for the Council—washed, inspected himself, dressed in his own clothes, shaved again. When Bannor brought him a tray of food, he ate as if the provender were made of dust and gravel. Then he slipped Atiaran’s knife into his belt, gripped the staff of Baradakas in his left hand, and sat down facing the door to await the summons.

  Finally Bannor returned to tell him that the time had come. For a few moments, Covenant sat still, holding the Bloodguard in his half-unseeing gaze, and wondering where he could get the courage to go on with this dream. He felt that his face was twisted, but he could not be sure.

  —that the uttermost limit—

  Get it over with.

  He touched the hard, hidden metal of his ring to steady himself, then levered his reluctant bones erect. Glaring at the doorway as if it were a threshold into peril, he lumbered through it and started down the corridor. At Bannor’s commanding back, he moved out of the tower, across the courtyard, then inward and down through the raveled and curiously wrought passages of Revelstone.

  Eventually they came through bright-lit halls deep in the mountain to a pair of arching wooden doors. These were closed, sentried by Bloodguard; and lining both walls were stone chairs, some man-sized and others large enough for Giants. Bannor nodded to the sentries. One of them pulled open a door while the other motioned for Bannor and Covenant to enter. Bannor guided Covenant into the council chamber of the Lords.

  The Close was a huge, sunken, circular room with a ceiling high and groined, and tiers of seats set around three quarters of the space. The door through which Covenant entered was nearly level with the highest seats, as were the only two other doors—both of them small—at the opposite side of the chamber. Below the lowest tier of seats were three levels: on the first, several feet below the gallery, stood a curved stone table, three-quarters round, with its gap toward the large doors and many chairs around its outer edge; below this, contained within the C of the table, was the flat floor of the Close; and finally, in the center of the floor, lay a broad, round pit of graveling. The yellow glow of the fire-stones was supported by four huge lillianrill torches, burning without smoke or consumption in their sockets around the upper wall.

  As Bannor took him down the steps toward the open end of the table, Covenant observed the people in the chamber. Saltheart Foamfollower lounged nearby at the table in a massive stone chair; he watched Covenant’s progress down the steps and grinned a welcome for his former passenger. Beyond him, the only people at the table were the Lords. Directly opposite Covenant, at the head of the table, sat High Lord Prothall. His staff lay on the stone before him. An ancient man and woman were several feet away on either side of him; an equal distance from the woman on her left was Lord Mhoram; and opposite Mhoram, down the table from the old man, sat a middle-aged woman. Four Bloodguard had positioned themselves behind each of the Lords.

  There were only four other people in the Close. Beyond the High Lord near the top of the gallery sat the Hearthralls, Birinair and Tohrm, side by side as if they complemented each other. And just behind them were two more men, one a warrior with a double black diagonal on his breastplate, and the other Tuvor, First Mark of the Bloodguard. With so few people in it, the Close seemed large, hollow, and cryptic.

  Bannor steered Covenant to the lone chair below the level of the Lords’ table and across the pit of graveling from the High Lord. Covenant seated himself stiffly and looked around. He felt that he was uncomfortably far from the Lords; he feared he would have to shout his message. So he was surprised when Prothall stood and said softly, “Thomas Covenant, be welcome to the Council of Lords.” His rheumy voice reached Covenant as clearly as if they had been standing side by side.

  Covenant did not know how to respond; uncertainly, he touched his right fist to his chest, then extended his arm with his palm open and forward. As his senses adjusted to the Close, he began to perceive the presence, the emanating personality and adjudication, of the Lords. They gave him an impression of stern vows gladly kept, of wide-ranging and yet single-minded devotion. Prothall stood alone, meeting Covenant’s gaze. The High Lord’s appearance of white age was modified by the stiffness of his beard and the erectness of his carriage; clearly, he was strong yet. But his eyes were worn with the experience of an asceticism, an abnegation, carried so far that it seemed to abrogate his flesh—as if he had been old for so long that now only the power to which he devoted himself preserved him from decrepitude.

  The two Lords who flanked him were not so preserved. They had dull, age-marked skin and wispy hair; and they bowed at the table as if striving against the antiquity of their bones to distinguish between meditation and sleep. Lord Mhoram Covenant already knew, though now Mhoram appeared more incisive and dangerous, as if the companionship of his fellow Lords whetted his capacities. But the fifth Lord Covenant did not know; she sat squarely and factually at the table, with her blunt, forthright face fixed on him like a defiance.

  “Let me make introduction before we begin,” the High Lord murmured. “I am Prothall son of Dwillian, High Lord by the choice of the Council. At my right are Variol Tamarantha-mate and Pentil-son, once High Lord”—as he said this, the two ancient Lords raised their time-latticed faces and smiled privately at each other—“and Osondrea daughter of Sondrea. At my left, Tamarantha Variol-mate and Enesta-daughter, and Mhoram son o
f Variol. You know the Seareach Giant, Saltheart Foamfollower, and have met the Hearthralls of Lord’s Keep. Behind me also are Tuvor, First Mark of the Bloodguard, and Garth, Warmark of the Warward of Lord’s Keep. All have the right of presence at the Council of Lords. Do you protest?”

  Protest? Covenant shook his head dumbly.

  “Then we shall begin. It is our custom to honor those who come before us. How may we honor you?”

  Again, Covenant shook his head. I don’t want any honor. I made that mistake once already.

  After an inquiring pause, the High Lord said, “Very well.” Turning toward the Giant, he raised his voice. “Hail and welcome, Giant of Seareach, Saltheart Foamfollower, Rockbrother and inheritor of Land’s loyalty. The Unhomed are a blessing to the Land.

  “Stone and Sea are deep in life.

  “Welcome whole or hurt, in boon or bane—ask or give. To any requiring name we will not fail while we have life or power to meet the need. I am High Lord Prothall; I speak in the presence of Revelstone itself.”

  Foamfollower stood to return the salutation. “Hail, Lord and Earthfriend. I am Saltheart Foamfollower, legate from the Giants of Seareach to the Council of Lords. The truth of my people is in my mouth, and I hear the approval of the ancient sacred ancestral stone—

  “raw Earth rock—

  pure friendship—

  a handmark of allegiance and fealty in the

  eternal stone of time.

  “Now is the time for proof and power of troth. Through Giant Woods and Sarangrave Flat and Andelain, I bear the name of the ancient promises.” Then some of the formality dropped from his manner, and he added with a gay glance at Covenant, “And bearing other things as well. My friend Thomas Covenant has promised that a song will be made of my journey.” He laughed gently. “I am a Giant of Seareach. Make no short songs for me.”

  His humor drew a chuckle from Lord Mhoram, and Prothall smiled softly; but Osondrea’s dour face seemed incapable of laughter, and neither Variol nor Tamarantha appeared to have heard the Giant. Foamfollower took his seat, and almost at once Osondrea said as if she were impatient, “What is your embassy?”