The Illearth War Read online

  “Lord—” Again he faltered, but at once he controlled himself. “I must tell you of the mission to Seareach, and of the ill doom which has befallen The Grieve.”

  “I hear you,” Mhoram said painfully. “But forgive me—I must sit.” Like an old man, he lowered himself down his staff to rest with his back against the wall of the parapet. “I lack the strength to stand for such tidings.”

  Tull seated himself opposite the Lord across the graveling pot, and Troy sat down also, as if Tull’s movement compelled him. The vestiges of his sight were locked on the Bloodguard.

  After a moment, Mhoram said, “Runnik came to us in Trothgard. He spoke of Hoerkin and Lord Shetra, and of the lurker of the Sarangrave. There is no need to speak of such things again.”

  “Very well.” Tull faced the Lord, but his visage was shrouded in darkness. Troy could not see his eyes; he appeared to have no eyes, no mouth, no features. When he began his tale, his voice seemed to be the voice of the blind night.

  But he told his tale clearly and coherently, as if he had rehearsed it many times during his journey from Seareach. And as he spoke, Troy was reminded that he was the youngest of the Bloodguard—a Haruchai no older than Troy himself. Tull had come to Revelstone to replace one of the Bloodguard who had been slain during Lord Mhoram’s attempt to scout the Shattered Hills. So he was still new to the Vow. Perhaps that explained his unexpected emotion, and his ability to tell a tale in a way that his hearers could understand.

  After the deaths of Lord Shetra and the Bloodguard Cerrin, there was rain in Sarangrave Flat all that day. It was cold and merciless, and it harmed the mission, for Lord Hyrim was sickened by the river water he had swallowed, and the rain made his sickness worse. And the Bloodguard could give him no ease—neither warmth nor shelter. In the capsizing of the raft, all the blankets had been lost. And the rank water of the Defiles Course did other damage: it spoiled all the food except that which had been kept in tight containers; it ruined the lillianrill rods, so that they had no more potency to burn against the rain; it even stained the clothing, so that Lord Hyrim’s robe and the raiment of the Bloodguard became black.

  Before the end of the day, the Lord was no longer strong enough to propel or steer the raft. Fever filled his eyes, and his lips were blue and trembling with cold. Sitting in the center of the raft, he hugged his staff as if for warmth.

  During the night, he began to rant.

  In a voice that bubbled through the water running down his face, he spoke to himself as to an adversary and tormentor, alternately cursing and pleading. At times he wept like a child. His delirium was cruel to him, demeaning him as if he were without use or worth. And the Bloodguard could do nothing to succor him.

  But at last before dawn the rain broke, and the sky became clear. Then Korik ordered the raft over to one bank. Though it was perilous to stop thus in darkness, he sent half the Bloodguard foraging into the jungle for firewood and aliantha.

  After Sill fed him a handful of treasure-berries, the Lord rallied enough to call up a flame from his staff. With this, Korik started a fire, built it into a steady blaze near the center of the raft. Then the steersmen pushed the raft out into the night, and the mission continued on its way.

  In the course of that day, they slowly passed out of the Sarangrave. Across the leagues, the Defiles Course was now growing constantly wider and shallower, dividing into more channels as islets and mudbanks increased. These channels were treacherous—shallow, barred with mudbanks, full of rotten logs and stumps—and the effort of navigating them slowed the raft still more. And around it, the jungle gradually changed. The vegetation of the Sarangrave gave way to different kinds of growths: tall, dark trees with limbs that spread out widely above bare trunks, hanging mosses, ferns of all kinds, bushes that clung to naked rock with thin root-fingers and seemed to drink from the river through leaves and branches. Water snakes swam out of the path of the raft. And the stench of the Course slowly faded into a smell of accumulated wet decay and stagnation.

  Thus the mission entered Lifeswallower, the Great Swamp.

  As they moved, Korik kept the raft in the northern passages. In this way, he was able to begin traveling northeastward—toward Seareach—and to avoid the heart of Lifeswallower.

  When night came, they were fortunate that the sky was clear; in that tortuous channel, starless darkness would have halted the mission altogether.

  Yet they were still in one of the less difficult regions of Lifeswallower; water still flowed over the deep mud and silt. Eastward, in the heart of the Great Swamp, the water slowly sank into the ground, creating one continuous quagmire for scores of leagues in all directions, where the mud flowed and seethed almost imperceptibly.

  But in other things they were not so fortunate. The fever now raged in Lord Hyrim. Though Sill had fed him with aliantha, and on water boiled clean, he was failing. Already he looked thinner, and he shook as if there were a palsy in his bones.

  And without him—without the power of his staff—the mission could not escape Lifeswallower. The steersmen were forced to keep the raft where the water was deepest because the mud of the Swamp sucked at their poles. If the logs touched that clinging mud, the Bloodguard would be unable to pull the raft free.

  Even in the center of the channel, their progress was threatened by the peculiar trees of Lifeswallower. These trees the Giants called marshwaders. Despite their height, and the wide stretch of their limbs, their roots were not anchored in solid ground. Rather they held themselves erect in the mud, and they seemed to move with the submerged, subtle currents of the Swamp. Passages that looked open from a distance were closed when the raft reached them; channels appeared which had been invisible earlier. More than once trees moved toward each other as the raft passed between them, as if they sought to capture it.

  All these things grew worse as the days passed. The level of the water in the channel was declining. As the mission moved north and east, more and more of the river was swallowed into the mire, and the raft sank toward the mud.

  The Bloodguard could find no escape. Lifeswallower allowed them no opportunity to work their way northward to solid ground. Although they were always within half a league of the simple marsh which bordered the Swamp, they could not reach it. They thrust the raft along, labored tirelessly day and night, paused only to collect aliantha and firewood. But they could not escape. They needed Lord Hyrim’s power—and he was lost in delirium. His eyes were crusted as if with dried foam, and only the treasure-berries and boiled water which Sill forced into him kept him alive.

  During the afternoon of the eighteenth day of the mission, the logs of the raft touched mud. Though thin water still gleamed among the trees, the raft no longer floated. The bog held it despite the best efforts of the steersmen, and drew it eastward deeper into the Swamp, moving with the slow current of the mire.

  Korik could not see any hope. But Sill disagreed. He insisted that within Lord Hyrim’s ill flesh an unquenched spirit survived. He felt it with his hand on the Lord’s brow; something in Hyrim still resisted the fever. Through the long watch of the day, he nourished that spirit with treasure-berries and boiled, brackish water. And in the evening the Lord rallied. Some of the dry flush left his face; he began to sweat. As his chills faded, his breathing became easier. By nightfall he was sleeping quietly.

  But it appeared that he had begun to recover too late. Deep in the dark night, the grip of the mud bore the raft into an open flat devoid of trees. There the current eddied, turned back on itself, formed a slow whirlpool just broad enough to catch all four sides of the raft and start sucking it down.

  And the Bloodguard could do nothing. Here all strength and fidelity lost their worth; here no Vow had meaning. The mission was in Lord Hyrim’s hands, and he was weak.

  But when Korik wakened him, the Lord’s eyes were lucid. He listened as Korik told him of the mission’s plight. Then after a time he said, “How far must we go to escape?”

  “A league, Lord.” Korik indic
ated the direction with a nod.

  “So far? Friend Korik, someday you must tell me how we came to these straits.” Sighing he pulled himself close to the fire and began eating the mission’s store of aliantha. He made no attempt to rise until he had eaten it all.

  Then, with Sill’s help, he climbed to his feet on the slowly revolving raft, and moved into position. Bracing himself against the Bloodguard, he thrust his staff between the logs into the mud.

  A snatch of song broke through his teeth; the staff began to pulse in his hands.

  For a time, his exertions had no effect. Power mounted in his staff, grew higher at the command of his uncertain strength, but the raft still sank deeper into the Swamp. The stench of decay and death thickened. Lord Hyrim groaned at the strain, and summoned more of his strength. He began to sing aloud.

  Blue sparks burst from the wood of his staff, ran down into the muck. With a loud sucking noise, the raft pulled free of the eddy, lumbered away. Swinging around the whirlpool, it started northward.

  For a long time, Lord Hyrim kept the raft moving. Then he reached the marshwaders on the north side of the eddy. There the Bloodguard threw out clingor lines to the trees ahead, used the ropes to pull the raft along. At once, Hyrim dropped his power and slumped forward. Sill bore him back to the center of the raft. As soon as he lay down by the embers of the fire, he was asleep.

  But now the Bloodguard no longer needed his help. They cast out the clingor ropes and heaved on them, hauled the raft between the trees. Their progress was slow, but they did not falter. And when the mud became so thick that their ropes broke under the strain, they strung lines between the trees and left the raft. Sill carried Lord Hyrim lashed to his back, and moved through the mire by pulling himself along the lines while the other Bloodguard strung new ropes ahead and released the ones behind. Then, at last, in the light of dawn, the mud changed to soft wet clay, the trees gave way to stands of cane and marsh grass, and the Bloodguard began to feel solid ground with their bare toes.

  Thus they came out into the wide belt of marsh that bordered Lifeswallower.

  In the distance ahead, they could see the steep hills which formed the southern edge of Seareach.

  The mission had lost three days.

  Yet the Bloodguard did not begrudge Lord Hyrim the time to cook a hot meal from the last supplies. The Lord was worn and wasted; his once-round face had become as lean as a wolf’s. He needed food and rest. And the mission would make good speed across Seareach toward Coercri. If necessary, the Bloodguard could carry Lord Hyrim.

  When he had eaten, the Lord groaned to his feet, and started toward the hills. He set a slow pace; he was forced to rest long and often. The Bloodguard soon saw that at this rate they would need all day to cross the five leagues to the hills. But the Lord refused their offer of aid. “Haste?” he said. “I have no heart for haste.” And his voice had a bitterness which surprised them until Korik reminded them of what they had heard from Warhaft Hoerkin, and of what the Lord’s response had been. Hyrim apparently believed Hoerkin’s prophecy concerning the downfall of the Giants.

  Yet the Lord labored throughout the day to reach the hills, and the next day he strove to climb the hills as if he had changed during the night, recovered his sense of urgency. Rolling his eyes at the arduous slope, he pushed himself, labored upward at the limit of his returning strength.

  When at last-he crested the hill, he and all the Bloodguard paused to look at Seareach.

  The land which the Old Lords had given to the Giants for a home was wide and fair. Enclosed by hills on the south, mountains on the west, and the Sunbirth Sea on the east, it was a green haven for the shipwrecked voyagers. But although they used the Land—cultivated the rolling countryside with crops of all kinds, planted immense vineyards, grew whole forests of the special redwood and teak trees from which they crafted their huge ships—they did not people it. They were lovers of the sea, and preferred to make their dwelling places in the cliffs of the rocky coast, forty leagues east from where the mission now stood.

  During the age of Damelon Giantfriend, when the Unhomed were more numerous, they had spread out along the coast, building homes and villages across the whole eastern side of Seareach. But their numbers had slowly declined, until now they were only a third of what they had once been. Yet they were a long-lived, story-loving, gay people and the lack of children hurt them cruelly. Out of slow loneliness, they had left their scattered homes in the north and south of Seareach, and had formed one community—a sea-cliff city where they could share their few children and their songs and their long tales. Despite their ancient custom of long names—names which told the tale of the thing named—they called their city simply Coercri, The Grieve. There they had lived since High Lord Kevin’s youth.

  Looking out over the land of the Giants, Lord Hyrim gave a low cry. “Korik! Pray that Hoerkin lied! Pray that his message was a lie! Ah, my heart!” He clutched at his chest with both hands, and started down the soft slope into Seareach at a run.

  Korik and Sill caught him swiftly, placed a hand under each of his arms. They bore him up between them so that he could move more easily. Thus the mission began its journey toward The Grieve.

  Lord Hyrim ran that way for the rest of the day, resting only at moments when the pain in his chest became unendurable. And the Bloodguard knew that he had good reason. Lord Mhoram had said, Twenty days. This was the twentieth day of the mission.

  The next dawn, when Lord Hyrim arose from his exhausted sleep, he spurned Korik and Sill, and ran alone.

  His pace soon brought the mission to the westmost of the Giants’ vineyards. Korik sent Doar and Shull through the rows, searching for some sign. But they reported that the Giants who had been working this vineyard had left it together in haste. The matter was clear. Giantish hoes and rakes as tall as men lay scattered among the vines with their blades and teeth still in the marks of their work, and several of the leather sacks in which the Giants usually carried their food and belongings had been thrown to the ground and abandoned. Apparently the Unhomed had received some kind of signal, and had dropped their work at once to answer it.

  Their footprints in the open earth of the vineyard ran in the direction of Coercri.

  That day, the mission passed through vineyards, teak stands, fields. In all of them, the scattered tools and supplies told the same tale. But the next day came a rain which effaced the footprints and work signs. The Bloodguard were able to gain no more knowledge from such things.

  During the night, the rain ended. In the slow breeze, the Bloodguard could smell sea salt. The clear sky appeared to promise a clear day, but the dawn of the twenty-third day had a red cast scored at moments with baleful glints of green, and it gave the Lord no relief. After he had eaten the treasure-berries Sill offered him, he did not arise. Rather, he wrapped his arms around his knees and bowed his head as if he were cowering.

  For the sake of the mission, Korik spoke. “Lord, we must go. The Grieve is near.”

  The Lord did not raise his head. His voice was muffled between his knees. “Are you impervious to fear? Do you not know what we will find? Or does it not touch you?”

  “We are the Bloodguard,” Korik replied.

  “Yes,” Lord Hyrim sighed. “The Bloodguard. And I am Hyrim son of Hoole, Lord of the Council of Revelstone. I am sworn to the services of the Land. I should have died in Shetra’s place. If I had her strength.”

  Abruptly he sprang to his feet. Spreading his arms, he cried in the words of the old ritual, “ ‘We are the new preservers of the Land—votaries of the Earthpower. Sworn and dedicate—dedicate— We will not rest—’ ” But he could not complete it. “Melenkurion!” he moaned, clutching his black robe at his chest. “Melenkurion Skyweir! Help me!”

  Korik was loath to speak, but the mission compelled him. “If the Giants are to be aided, we must do it.”

  “Aided?” Lord Hyrim gasped. “There is no aid for them!” He stooped, snatched up his staff. For several shuddering br
eaths, he held it, gripped it as if to wrest courage from it. “But there are other things. We must learn— The High Lord must be told what power performed this abomination!” His eyes had a shadow across them, and their lids were red as if with panic. Trembling he turned and started toward Coercri.

  Now the mission did not hasten. It moved cautiously toward the Sea, warding against an ambush. Yet the morning passed swiftly. Before noon, the Bloodguard and the Lord reached the high lighthouse of The Grieve.

  The lighthouse was a tall spire of open stonework that stood on the last and highest hill before the cliffs of the coast. The Giants had built it to guide their roving ships, and someone was always there to tend the focused light beam of the signal fire.

  But as the Bloodguard crept up the hill toward the foot of the spire, they could see that the fire was dead. No gleam of light or wisp of smoke came from the cupola atop the tower.

  They found blood on the steps of a lighthouse. It was dry and black, old enough to resist the washing of the rain.

  At a command from Korik, Vale ran up the steep steps into the spire. The rest of the Bloodguard waited, looking out over Coercri and the Sunbirth Sea.

  In the noon sun under a clear sky, the Sea was bright with dazzles, and out of sight below the rim of the cliff the waves made muffled thunder against the piers and levees of The Grieve.

  There, like a honeycomb in the cliff, was the city of the Giants. All its homes and halls and passages, all its entrances and battlements, had been delved into the rock of the coast. And it was immense. It had halls where five hundred Giants could gather for their Giantclaves and their stories which consumed days in the telling; it had docks for eight or ten of the mighty Giant ships; it had hearths and homes enough for all the remnant of the Unhomed.

  Yet it showed no sign of habitation. The back of The Grieve, the side facing inland, looked abandoned. Above it, an occasional gull screamed. And below, the Sea beat. But it revealed no life.