The Illearth War Read online

  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 leveled 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 honors 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 gray 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 center 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 glow 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 Yajña, 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.”

  Covenant kept his back to her, but he was not studying her sculpture. He was listening to her voice as if he expected it to change at any moment into the voice of someone he knew. Her tone resonated with implicit meanings. But he could not make them out. Abruptly, he turned to meet her eyes. Again, though she faced him, she seemed to be looking at or thinking about something else, something beyond him. Her elsewhere glance disturbed him. Studying her, his frown deepened until he wore the healing of his forehead like a crown of thorns.

  “What do you want?” he demanded.

  “Will you sit?” she said quietly. “There is much I would speak of with you.”

  “Like what?”

  The hardness of his tone did not make her flinch, but she spoke more quietly still. “I hope to find a way to win your help against the Despiser.”

  Thinking self-contemptuous thoughts, he retorted, “How far are you willing to go?”

  For an instant, the other focus of her eyes came close to him, touched him like a lick of fire. Blood rushed to his face, and he almost recoiled a step—so strongly did he feel for that instant that she had the capacity to go far beyond anything he could imagine. But the glimpse passed before he could guess at what it was. She turned unhurriedly away, went briefly into one of her other rooms. When she returned, she bore in her hands a wooden casket bound with old iron.

  Holding the casket as if it contained something precious, she said, “The Council has been much concerned in this matter. Some said, ‘Such a gift is too great for anyone. Let it be kept and safe for as long as we may be able to endure.’ And others said, ‘It will fail of its purpose, for he will believe that we seek to buy his aid with gifts. He will be angered against us, and will refuse.’ So spoke Lord Mhoram, whose knowledge of the Unbeliever is more than any other’s. But I said, ‘He is not our foe. He gives us no aid because he cannot give aid. Though he holds the white gold, its use is beyond him or forbidden him. Here is a weapon which surpasses us. It may be that he will be able to master it, and that with such a weapon he will help us, though he cannot use the white gold.’

  “After much thought and concern, my voice prevailed. Therefore the Council asks to give you this gift, so that its power will not lie idle, but will turn against the Despiser.

  “Ur-Lord Covenant, this is no light offering. Forty years ago, it was not in the possession of the Council. But the Staff of Law opened doors deep in Revelstone—doors which had been closed since the Desecration. The Lords hoped that these chambers contained other Wards of Kevin’s Lore—but no Wards were there. Yet among many things of forgotten use or little power this was found—this which we offer to you.”

  She pressed curiously on the sides of the casket, and the lid
swung open, revealing a cushioned velvet interior, on which lay a short silver sword. It was a two edged blade, with straight guards and a ribbed hilt; and it was forged around a clear white gem, which occupied the junction of the blade, guards, and hilt. This gem looked strangely lifeless; it reflected no light from the graveling, as if it were impervious or dead to any ordinary flame.

  With awe in her low voice, Elena said, “This is the krill of Loric Vilesilencer son of Damelon son of Berek. With this he slew the Demondim guise of moksha Raver, and delivered the Land from the first great peril of the ur-viles. Ur-Lord Covenant, Unbeliever and Ringthane, will you accept it?”

  Slowly, full of a leper’s fascinated dread of things that cut, Covenant lifted the krill from its velvet rest. Hefting it, he found that its balance pleased his hand, though his two fingers and thumb could not grip it well. Cautiously, he tested its edges with his thumb. They were as dull as if they had never been honed—as dull as the white gem. For a moment, he stood still, thinking that a knife did not need to be sharp to harm him.

  “Mhoram was right,” he said out of the dry, lonely hebetude of his heart. “I don’t want any gifts. I’ve had more gifts than I can bear.”

  Gifts! It seemed to him that everyone he had ever known in the Land had tried to give him gifts—Foamfollower, the Ranyhyn, Lord Mhoram, even Atiaran. The Land itself gave him an impossible nerve-health. But the gift of Lena Atiaran-daughter was more terrible than all the others. He had raped her, raped! And afterward she had gone into hiding so that her people would not learn what had happened to her and punish him. She had acted with an extravagant forbearance so that he could go free—free to deliver Lord Foul’s prophecy of doom to the Lords. Beside that self-abnegation, even Atiaran’s sacrifices paled.

  Lena! he cried. A violence of grief and self-recrimination blazed up in him. “I don’t want any more.” Thunder blackened his face. He grasped the krill in both fists, its blade pointing downward. With a convulsive movement, he stabbed the sword at the heart of the table, trying to break its blunt blade on the stone.

  A sudden flash of white blinded him like an instant of lightning. The krill wrenched out of his hands. But he did not try to see what had happened to it. He spun instantly back to face Elena. Through the white dazzle that confused his sight, he panted, “No more gifts! I can’t afford them!”

  But she was not looking at him, not listening to him. She held her hands to her mouth as she stared past him at the table. “By the Seven!” she whispered. “What have you done?”

  What—?

  He whirled to look.

  The blade of the krill had pierced the stone; it was embedded halfway to its guards in the table.

  Its white gem burned like a star.

  Dimly he became conscious of a throbbing ache in his wedding finger. His ring felt hot and heavy, almost molten. But he ignored it; he was afraid of it. Trembling, he reached out to touch the krill.

  Power burned his fingers.

  Hellfire!

  He snatched his hand away. The fierce pain made him clasp his fingers under his other arm, and groan.

  At once, Elena turned to him. “Are you harmed?” she asked anxiously. “What has happened to you?”

  “Don’t touch me!” he gasped.

  She recoiled in confusion, then stood watching him, torn between her concern for him and her astonishment at the blazing gem. After a moment, she shook herself as if throwing off incomprehension, and said softly, “Unbeliever—you have brought the krill to life.”

  Covenant made an effort to match her, but his voice quavered as he said, “It won’t make any difference. It won’t do you any good. Foul’s got all the power that counts.”

  “He does not possess the white gold.”

  “To hell with the white gold!”

  “No!” she retorted vehemently. “Do not say such a thing. I have not lived my life for nothing. My mother, and her mother before her, have not lived for nothing!”

  He did not understand her, but her sudden passion silenced him. He felt trapped between her and the krill; he did not know what to say or do. Helpless, he stared at the High Lord as her own emotions grew into speech.

  “You say that this makes no difference—that it does no good. Are you a prophet? And if you are, what do you say that we should do? Surrender?” For an instant, her self-possession wavered, and she exclaimed furiously, “Never!” He thought that he heard hatred in her words. But then she lowered her voice, and the sound of loathing faded. “No! There is no one in the Land who could endure to stand aside and allow the Despiser to work his will. If we must suffer and die without hope, then we will do so. But we will not despair, though it is the Unbeliever himself who says that we must.”

  Useless emotions writhed across his face, but he could not answer. His own conviction or energy had fallen into dust. Even the pain in his hand was almost gone. He looked away from her, then winced at the sharp sight of the krill. Slowly, as if he had aged in the past few moments, he lowered himself into a chair. “I wish,” he murmured blankly, emptily, “I wish I knew what to do.”

  At the edge of his attention, he was aware that Elena had left the room. But he did not raise his head until she returned and stood before him. In her hands she held a flask of springwine which she offered to him.

  He could see a concern he did not deserve in the complex otherness of her gaze.

  He accepted the flask and drank deeply, searching for a balm to ease the splitting ache in his forehead and for some way to support his failing courage. He dreaded the High Lord’s intentions, whatever they were. She was too sympathetic, too tolerant of his violence; she allowed him too much leeway without setting him free. Despite the solidness of Revelstone under his sensitive feet, he was on unsteady ground.

  When after a short silence she spoke again, she had an air of bringing herself to the point of some difficult honesty; but there was nothing candid in the unexplained disfocus of her eyes. “I am lost in this matter,” she said. “There is much that I must tell you, if I am to be open and blameless. I do not wish to be reproached with any lack of knowledge in you—the Land will not be served by any concealment which might later be called by another name. Yet my courage fails me, and I know not what words to use. Mhoram offered to take this matter from me, and I refused, believing that the burden is mine. Yet now I am lost, and cannot begin.”

  Covenant bent his frown toward her, refusing with the pain in his forehead to give her any aid.

  “You have spoken with Hile Troy,” she said tentatively, unsure of this approach. “Did he describe his coming to the Land?”

  Covenant nodded without relenting. “An accident. Some misbegotten kid—a young student, he says—was trying to get me.”

  Elena moved as if she meant to pursue that idea, but then she stopped herself, reconsidered, and took a different tack. “I do not know your world—but the Warmark tells me that such things do not happen there. Have you observed Lord Mhoram? Or Hiltmark Quaan? Or perhaps Hearthrall Tohrm? Any of those you knew forty years ago? Does it appear to you that—that they are young?”

  “I’ve noticed.” Her question agitated him. He had been clinging to the question of age, trying to establish it as a discrepancy, a breakdown in the continuity of his delusion. “It doesn’t fit. Mhoram and Tohrm are too young. It’s impossible. They are not forty years older.”

  “I also am young,” she said intently, as if she were trying to help him guess a secret. But at the sight of his glowering incomprehension, she retreated from the plunge. To answer him, she said, “This has been true for as long as there has been such lore in the Land. The Old Lords lived to great age. They were not long-lived as the Giants are—because that is the natural span of their people. No, it was the service of the Earthpower which preserved them, secured them from age long past their normal years. High Lord Kevin lived centuries as people live decades.

  “So, too, it is in this present time, though in a lesser way. We do not bring out all the potency of
the Lore. And the Warlore does not preserve its followers, so Quaan and his warriors alone of your former comrades carry their full burden of years. But those of the rhadhamaerl and the lillianrill, and the Lords who follow Kevin’s Lore, age more slowly than others. This is a great boon, for it extends our strength. But also it causes grief—”

  She fell silent for a moment, sighed quietly to herself as if she were remembering an old injury. But when she spoke again, her voice was clear and steady. “So it has always been. Lord Mhoram has seen ten times seven summers—yet he hardly carries fifty of them. And—” Once again, she stopped herself and changed directions. With a look that searched Covenant, she said, “Does it surprise you to hear that I rode a Ranyhyn as a child? There is no other in the Land who has had such good fortune.”

  He finished his springwine, and got to his feet to pace the room in front of her. The tone in which she recurred to the Ranyhyn was full of suggestions; he sensed wide possibilities of distress in it. More in anxiety than in irritation, he growled at her, “Hellfire. Get on with it.”

  She tensed as if in preparation for a struggle, and said, “Warmark Hile Troy’s account of his summoning to the Land may not have been altogether accurate. I have heard him tell his tale, and he confuses something which I—we—have not thought it well to correct. We have kept this matter secret between us.

  “Ur-Lord Covenant.” She paused, steadying herself, then said carefully, “Hile Troy was summoned by no young student, ignorant of the perils of power. The summoner was one whom you have known.”

  Triock! Covenant almost missed his footing. Triock son of Thuler, of Mithil Stonedown, had reason to hate the Unbeliever. He had loved Lena—but Covenant could not bear to say that name aloud. Squirming at his cowardice, he avoided Triock by saying, “Pietten. That poor kid—from Soaring Woodhelven. The ur-viles did something to him. Was it him?” He did not dare to meet the High Lord’s eyes.