The Illearth War t1cotc-2 Page 8

  “What does it matter?” said Troy irritably. “The Council chose her. A couple of years ago-when Osondrea, the old High Lord, died. They put their, minds together-you must have noticed when you were here before how the Lords can pool their thoughts, think together-and she was elected.” As he spoke, the irritation faded from his tone. "They e said she has some special quality, some inner mettle that makes her the best leader for this war. Maybe I don't know what they mean-but I know she's got something. She's impossible to refuse. I would fight with stew forks and soup spoons against Foul

  “So I don't understand you. You may be the last man alive who's seen the Celebration of Spring. And there she stands, looking like all the allure of the Land put together-practically begging you. And you!” Troy struck the table with his hand, brandished his empty sockets at Covenant. “You refuse.”

  Abruptly, he slapped his sunglasses back on, and flung away from the table to pace the room again, as if he could not sit still in the face of Covenant's perversity.

  Covenant watched him, seething at the freedom of Troy's judgment-the trust he placed in his own rectitude. But Covenant had heard something else in Troy's voice, a different explanation. Probing bluntly, he asked, “Is Mhoram in love with her, too?”

  At that, Troy spun, pointed a finger rigid with accusation at the Unbeliever. “You know what I think? You're too cynical to see the beauty here. You're too cheap. You've got it made in your `real' world, with all those royalties rolling in. So what if you're sick? That doesn't stop you from getting rich. Coming here just gets in the way of hacking out more best-sellers. Why should you fight the Despiser? You're just like him yourself.”

  Before the Warmark could go on, Covenant rasped thickly, “Get out. Shut up and get out.”

  “Forget it. I'm not going to leave until you give me one-”

  “Get out.”

  “-one good reason for the way you're acting. I'm not going to walk away and let you destroy the Land just because the Lords are too scrupulous to lean on you.”

  “That's enough!” Covenant was on his feet. His hurt blazed up before he could catch hold of himself. “Don't you even know what a leper is?”

  “What difference does that make? It's no worse than not having any eyes. Aren't you healthy here?”

  Mustering all the force of his injury, his furious grief, Covenant averred, “No!” He waved his hands.

  “Do you call this health? It's a lie!”

  That cry visibly stunned Troy. The black assertion of his sunglasses faltered; the inner aura of his spirit was confused by doubt. For the first time, he looked: like a blind man.

  “I don't understand,” he said softly.

  He faced the onslaught of Covenant's glare for a; moment longer. Then he turned and left the room, moving quietly, as if he had been humbled.

  Six: The High Lord

  WHEN evening came, Thomas Covenant sat on his balcony to watch the sun set behind the Westron Mountains. Though summer was hardly past, there was a gleam of white snow on many of the peaks. As, the sun dropped behind them, the western sky shone with a sharing of cold and fire. White silver reflected; from the snow across the bottom of a glorious sky, an orange-gold gallant display sailing with full canvas over the horizon.

  Covenant watched it bleakly. A scowl knotted his forehead like a fist. He had spent the afternoon in useless rage, but after a time his anger at Troy had died down among the embers of his protest against being summoned to the Land. Now he felt cold at heart, desolate and alone. The resolve he had expressed to Mhoram, his determination to survive; seemed pretentious-fey and anile. And the frown.' clenched his forehead as if the flesh over his skull refused to admit that it had been healed.

  He was thinking of jumping from the balcony. To quell his fear of heights, he would have to wait until, the darkness of the night was complete, and he could no longer see the ground. But considered in that way, the idea both attracted and repelled him. It offended his leper's training, heaped ridicule on everything he had already endured to cling to life. It spoke of a defeat-that was as bitter as starkest gall to him. But he yearned for relief from his dilemma. He felt as dry as a wasteland, and rationalizations came easily. Chiefest of these was the argument that since the Land was not real it could not kill him; a death here would only force him back into the reality that was the only thing in which he could believe. In his aloneness, he could not tell whether that argument expressed courage or cowardice.

  Slowly, the last of the sun fell behind the mountains, and its emblazonry faded from the sky. Gloaming spread out of the shadow of the peaks, dimming the plains below Covenant until he could only discern them as uneasy, recumbent shapes under the heavens. The stars came out and grew gradually brighter, as if to clarify trackless space; but the voids between them were too great, and the map they made was unreadable. In his dusty, unfertile gaze, they seemed to twinkle unconsolably.

  When he heard the polite knock at his door, his need for privacy groaned at the intrusion. But he had other needs as well. He pushed himself to go answer the knock.

  The stone door swung open easily on noiseless hinges, and light streamed into the room from the bright-lit hall, dazzling him so that for a moment he did not recognize either of the men outside. Then one of them said, “Ur-Lord Covenant, we bid you welcome,” in a voice that seemed to bubble with good humour. Covenant identified Tohrm.

  “Welcome and true,” said Tohrm's companion carefully, as if he were afraid he would make a mistake. “We are the Hearthralls of Lord's Keep. Please accept welcome and comfort.”

  As Covenant's eyes adjusted, he considered the two men. Tohrm's companion wore a grey-green Woodhelvennin cloak, and had a small wreath in his hair the mark of a Hirebrand. In his hands he carried several smooth wooden rods for torches. Both the Hearthralls were clean-shaven, but the Hirebrand was taller and slimmer than his partner. Tohrm had the stocky, muscular frame of a Stonedownor, and he wore a loam-coloured tunic with soft trousers. His companion's cloak was bordered in Lords' blue; he had blue epaulets woven into the shoulders of his tunic. Cupped in each of his hands was a small, covered, stone bowl.

  Covenant scrutinized Tohrm's face. The Hearthrall's nimble eyes and swift smile were soberer than Covenant remembered them, but still essentially unchanged. Like Mhoram, he did not show enough years to account for the full forty.

  “I am Borillar,” Tohrm's companion recited, “Hirebrand of the lillianrill and Hearthrall of Lord's Keep. This is Tohrm, Gravelingas of the rhadhamaerl and likewise Hearthrall of Lord's Keep. Darkness withers v the heart. We have brought you light.”

  But as Borillar spoke, a look of concern touched Tohrm's face, and he said, “Ur-Lord, are you well?”

  “Well?” Covenant murmured vaguely.

  “There is a storm on your brow, and it gives you ` pain. Shall I call a Healer?”

  “What?”

  “Ur-Lord Covenant, I am in your debt. I am told that at the hazard of your life you rescued my old friend Birinair from beyond the forbidding fire under Mount Thunder. That was bravely done-though it came too late to save his life. Do not hesitate to ask of me. For Birinair's sake, I will do all in my power for you.”

  Covenant shook his head. He knew he should correct Tohrm, tell him that he had braved that fire in an effort to immolate himself, not to save Birinair. But he lacked the courage. Dumbly, he stepped aside and let the Hearthralls into his rooms.

  Borillar immediately set about lighting his torches; he moved studiously to the wall sockets as if he were trying to create a good, grave impression. Covenant watched him for a moment, and Tohrm said with a covered smile, “Good Borillar is in awe of you, ur-Lord. He has heard the legends of the Unbeliever from his cradle. And he has not been Hearthrall long. His former master in the lillianrill lore resigned this post to oversee the completion of the Gildenlode keels and rudders which they have been devising for the Giants — as High Lord Loric Vilesilencer promised. Borillar feels himself untimely thrust into responsibility
. My old friend Birinair would have called him a whelp”

  “He's young,” Covenant said dully. Then he turned to Tohrm, forced himself to ask the question which most concerned him. “But you-you're too young. You should be older. Forty years.”

  “Ur-Lord, I have seen fifty-nine summers. Forty-one have passed since you came to Revelstone with the Giant, Saltheart Foamfollower.”

  “But you're not old enough. You don't look more than forty now.”

  “Ah,” said Tohrm, grinning broadly, “the service of our lore, and of Revelstone, keeps us young. Without us, these brave Giant-wrought halls would be dark, and in winter-to speak truly-they would be cold. Who could grow old on the joy of such work?”

  Happily, he moved off, set one of his pots on the table in the sitting room, and another in the bedroom by the bed. When he uncovered the pots, the warm glow of the graveling joined the fight of the torches, and gave the illumination in the suite a richer and somehow kinder cast.

  Tohrm breathed the graveling's aroma of newly broken earth with a glad smile. He finished while his companion was lighting the last of his torches in the bedroom. Before Borillar could return to the sitting room, the older Hearthrall stepped close to Covenant and whispered, “Ur-Lord, say a word to good Borillar. He will cherish it.”

  A moment later, Borillar walked across the room to stand stiffly by the door. He looked like a resolute acolyte, determined not to fail a high duty. Finally his young intentness, and Tohrm's appeal, moved Covenant to say, awkwardly, “Thank you, Hirebrand.”

  At once, pleasure transformed Borillar's face. He tried to maintain his gravity, to control his grin, but the man of legends, Unbeliever and Ringthane, had spoken to him, and he blurted out, "Be welcome, ur-Lord Covenant. You will save the Land.

  Tohrm cocked an amused eyebrow at his fellow Hearthrall, gave Covenant a gay, grateful bow, and ushered the Hirebrand from the room. As they departed, Tohrm started to close the door, then stopped, nodded to someone in the hall, and went away leaving the door open.

  Bannor stepped into the room. He met Covenant's gaze with eyes that never slept-that only rarely blinked-and said, “The High Lord would speak with you now.”

  “Oh, hell,” Covenant groaned. He looked back with something like regret at his balcony and the night beyond. Then he went with the Bloodguard.

  Walking down the hall, he gave himself a quick VSE. It was a pointless exercise, but he needed the habit of it, if for no other reason than to remind himself of who he was, what the central fact of his life was. He did it deliberately, as a matter of conscious choice. But it did not hold his attention. As he moved, Revelstone exerted its old influence over him again.

  The high, intricate ways of the Keep had a strange power of suasion, an ability to carry conviction. They had been delved into the mountain promontory by Saltheart Foamfollower's laughing, story-loving ancestors; and like the Giants they had an air of bluff and inviolable strength. Now Bannor was taking Covenant deeper down into Revelstone than he had ever been before. With his awakening perceptions, he could feel the massive gut-rock standing over him; it was as if he were in palpable contact with absolute weight itself. And on a pitch of hearing that was not quite audible, or not quite hearing, he could sense the groups of people who slept or worked in places beyond the walls from him. Almost he seemed to hear the great Keep breathe. And yet all those myriad, uncountable tons of stone were not fearsome. Revelstone gave him an impression of unimpeachable security; the mountain refused to let him fear that it would fall.

  Then he and Bannor reached a dim hall sentried by two Bloodguard standing with characteristic relaxed alacrity on,either side of the entrance. There were no torches or other lights in the hall, but a strong glow illuminated it from its far end. With a nod to his comrades, Bannor led Covenant inward.

  At the end of the hall, they entered a wide, round courtyard under a high cavern, with a stone floor as smooth as if it had been meticulously polished for ages. The bright, pale-yellow light came from this floor; the stone shone as if a piece of the sun had gone into its making.

  The courtyard held no other lights. But though it was not blinding at the level of the floor, the glow cast out all darkness. Covenant could survey the cave clearly from bottom to top. At intervals up the walls were railed coigns with doors behind them which provided access to the open space above the court.

  Bannor paused for a moment to allow Covenant to look around. Then he walked barefoot out onto the shining floor. Tentatively, Covenant followed, fearing that his feet would be burned. But he felt nothing through his boots except a quiet resonance of power. It set up a tingling vibration in his nerves.

  Only after he became accustomed to the touch of the floor did he notice that there were doors widely spaced around the courtyard. He counted fifteen. Bloodguard sentries stood at nine of them, and several feet into the shining floor from each of these nine was a wooden tripod. Three of these tripods held Lords' staffs-and one of the staffs was the Staff of Law. It was distinguished from the smooth wood of the other staffs by its greater thickness, and by the complex runes carved into it between its iron heels.

  Bannor took Covenant to the door behind the Staff. The Bloodguard there stepped forward to meet them, greeted Bannor with a nod.

  Bannor said, “I have brought ur-Lord Covenant to the High Lord.”

  “She awaits him.” Then the sentry levelled the impassive threat of his gaze at Covenant. “We are the Bloodguard. The care of the Lords is in our hands. I am Morin, First Mark of the Bloodguard since the passing of Tuvor. The High Lord will speak with you alone. Think no harm against her, Unbeliever. We will not permit it.” Without waiting for an answer, Morin, stepped aside to let him approach the door.

  Covenant was about to ask what harm he could possibly do the High Lord, but Bannor forestalled him “In this place,” the Bloodguard explained, “the Lords set aside their burdens. Their staffs they leave here, and within these doors they rest, forgetting the cares of the Land. The High Lord honours you greatly in speaking to you here. Without Staff or guard, she greets you as a friend in her sole private place. Ur-Lord, you are not a foe of the Land. But you give little respect. Respect this.”

  He held Covenant's gaze for a moment as if to enforce his words. Then he went and knocked at the door.

  When the High Lord opened her door, Covenant saw her clearly for the first time. She had put aside her blue Lord's robe, and instead wore a long, light brown Stonedownor shift with a white pattern woven into the shoulders. A white cord knotted at her waist emphasized her figure, and her thick hair, a rich brown with flashes of pale honey, fell to her shoulders, disguising the pattern there. She appeared younger than he had expected-he would have said that she was in her early thirties at most-but her face was strong, and the white skin of her forehead and throat knew much about sternness and discipline, though she smiled almost shyly when she saw Covenant.

  But behind the experience of responsibility and commitment in her features was something strangely evocative. She seemed distantly familiar, as if in. the background of her face she resembled someone he had once known. This impression was both heightened and denied by her eyes. They were grey like his own; but though they met him squarely they had an elsewhere cast, a disunion of focus, as if she were watching something else-as if some other, more essential eyes, the eyes of her mind, were looking somewhere else. Her gaze touched parts of him which had not responded for a long time.

  “Please enter,” she said in a voice like a clear spring.

  Moving woodenly, Covenant went past her into her rooms, and she shut the door behind him, closing out the light from the courtyard. Her antechamber was illumined simply by a pot of graveling in each corner. Covenant stopped in the centre of the room, and looked about him. The space was bare and unadorned, containing nothing but the graveling, a few stone chairs, and a table on which stood a white carving; but still the room seemed quiet and comfortable. The light gave this effect, he decided. The warm graveling glo
w made even flat stone companionable, enhanced the essential security of Revelstone. It was like being cradled-wrapped in the arms of the rock and cared for.

  High Lord Elena gestured toward one of the chairs. “Will you sit? There is much of which I would speak with you.”

  He remained standing, looking away from her. Despite the room's ambience, he felt intensely uncomfortable. Elena was his summoner, and he distrusted her. But when he found his voice, he half surprised himself by expressing one of his most private concerns. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Bannor knows more than he's telling.”

  He caught her off guard. “More?” she echoed, groping. “What has he said that leaves more concealed?”

  But he had already said more than he intended. He kept silent, watching her out of the corner of his sight.

  “The Bloodguard know doubt,” she went on unsurely. “Since Kevin Landwaster preserved them from the Desecration and his own end, they have felt a distrust of their own fidelity-though none would dare to raise any accusation against them. Do you speak of this?”

  He did not want to reply, but her direct attention compelled him. “They've already lived too long. Bannor knows it.” Then, to escape the subject, he went over to the table to look at the carving. The white statuette stood on an ebony base. It was a rearing Ranyhyn mare made of a material that looked like bone. The work was blunt of detail, but through some secret of its art it expressed the power of the great muscles, the intelligence of the eyes, the oriflamme of the guttering mane.

  Without approaching him, Elena said, “That is my craft-marrowmeld. Does it please you? It is Myrha, the Ranyhyn that bears me.”

  Something stirred in Covenant. He did not want to think about the Ranyhyn, but he thought that he had found a discrepancy. “Foamfollower told me that the marrowmeld craft had been lost.”

  “So it was. I alone in the Land practice this Ramen craft. Anundivian yajna, also named marrowmeld or bone-sculpting, was lost to the Ramen during their exile in the Southron Range-during the Ritual of Desecration. I do not speak in pride-I have been blessed in many things. When I was a child, a Ranyhyn bore me into the mountains. For three days we did not return, so that my mother thought me dead. But the Ranyhyn taught me much-much- In my learning, I recovered the ancient craft. The lore to reshape dry bones came to my hands. Now I practice it here, when the work of the Lords wearies me.”