The movement of her head as she looked upward seemed fatally slow, as if her old paralysis had its hand on her again. The last time she was here, Gibbon’s touch had reduced her to near catatonia. The principal doom of the Land is upon your shoulders. Through eyes and ears and touch, you are made to be what the Despiser requires. Once she had pleaded with Covenant, You’ve got to get me out of here. Before they make me kill you.
But she did not plead now or seek to shirk the consequences of her choices. Her voice sounded dull and stunned; yet she accepted Covenant’s demands. “It’s hard,” she murmured. “Hard to see past the Banefire. It wants me—wants to throw me at the sun. Throw me at the sun forever.” Fear glazed her eyes as if that cast had already begun. “It’s hard to see anything else.” However, a moment later she frowned. Her gaze sharpened. “But Gibbon isn’t there. Not there. He’s still in the main Keep. And I don’t feel anything else.” When she looked at Covenant again, she appeared as severe as she had at their first meeting. “I don’t think they’ve ever used the tower.”
A surge of relief started up in Covenant, but he fought it down. He could not afford that either. It blunted his control, let hints of blackness leak through his mind. Striving to match her, he muttered, “Then let’s go.”
With Nom and Linden, Cail and Fole, he walked into the tunnel; and his companions followed him like echoes.
As he traversed the passage, be instinctively hunched his shoulders, bracing himself against the attack he still expected from the ceiling of the tunnel. But no attack came. Linden had read the tower accurately. Soon he stood in the courtyard. The sun shone before him on the high, buttressed face of the Keep and on the massive inner gates.
Those stone slabs were notched and beveled and balanced so that they could open outward smoothly and marry exactly when they closed. They were heavy enough to rebuff any force of which their makers had been able to conceive. And they were shut, interlocking with each other like teeth. The lines where they hinged and met were barely distinguishable.
“I have said it,” the First breathed behind Covenant. “The Unhomed wrought surpassingly well in this place.”
She was right; the gates looked ready to stand forever.
Suddenly Covenant became urgent for haste. If he did not find an answer soon, he would go up like tinder and oil. The sun had not yet reached midmoming; and the shaft of the Banefire stood poised above him like a scythe titanic and bloody enough to reap all the life of the world. Sunder’s hands clutched the krill and his orcrest, holding them ready; but he looked strangely daunted by the great Keep, by what it meant and contained. For the first time in the ordeal of the Search, Pitchwife seemed vulnerable to panic, capable of flight. Linden’s skin was the color of ashes. But Honninscrave held his fists clinched at his sides as if he knew he was close to the reasons for Seadreamer’s death and did not mean to wait for them much longer.
Covenant groaned to himself. He should have begun his attack last night, while most of his friends slept. He was sick of guilt.
With a fervid sweep of his arm, he sent Nom at the gates.
The Sandgorgon seemed to understand instinctively. In three strides, it reached full speed.
Hurtling forward like a juggernaut, it crashed headlong against the juncture of the clenched slabs.
The impact boomed across the courtyard, thudded in Covenant’s lungs, rebounded like a cannonade from the tower. The stones underfoot shivered; a vibration like a wail ran through the abutments. The spot Nom struck was crushed and dented as if it were formed of wood.
But the gates stood.
The beast stepped back as if it were astonished. It turned its head like a question toward Covenant. But an instant later it rose up in the native savagery of all Sandgorgons and began to beat at the gates with the staggering might of its arms.
Slowly at first, then more and more rapidly, the beast struck, one sledgehammer arm and then the other in accelerating sequence, harder and faster, harder and faster, until the courtyard was full of thunder and the stone yowled distress. Covenant was responsible for that—and still the gates held, bore the battery. Chips and splinters spat in all directions; granite teeth screamed against each other; the flagstones of the court seemed to ripple and dance. Still the gates held.
To herself, Linden whimpered as if she could feel every blow in her frangible bones.
Covenant started to shout for Nom to stop. He did not understand what the Sandgorgon was doing. The sight of such an attack would have rent Mhoram’s heart.
But an instant later he heard the rhythm of Nom’s blows more clearly, heard how that pulse meshed with the gutrock’s protesting retorts and cries; and he understood. The Sandgorgon had set up a resonance in the gates, and each impact increased the frequency and amplitude of the vibrations. If the beast did not falter, the slabs might be driven to tear themselves apart.
Abruptly red fire poured down off the abutment immediately above the gates. Riders appeared brandishing their rukhs: four or five of them. Wielding the Banefire together, they were more mighty than an equal number of individuals; and they shaped a concerted blast to thrust Nom back from the gates.
But Covenant was ready for them. He had been expecting something like this, and his power was hungry for utterance, for any release that would ease the strain within him. Meticulous with desperation, he put out wild magic to defend the Sandgorgon.
His force was a sickening mixture of blackness and argence, mottled and leprous. But it was force nonetheless, fire capable of riving the heavens. It covered the Riders, melted their rukhs to slag, then pitched them back into the Keep with their robes aflame.
Nom went on hammering at the gates in a transport of destructive ecstasy as if it had finally met an obstacle worthy of it.
Honninscrave quivered to hurl himself forward; but the First restrained him. He obeyed her like a man who would soon be beyond reach of any command.
Then Nom struck a final blow—struck so swiftly that Covenant did not see how the blow was delivered. He saw only the small still fraction of time as the gates passed from endurance to rupture. They stood—and the change came upon them like the last inward suck of air before the blast of a hurricane—and then they were gone, ripped apart in a wrench of detonation with fragments whining like agony in all directions and stone-powder billowing so thickly that Nom disappeared and the broken mouth of Revelstone was obscured.
Slowly the high, wide portal became visible through the dust. It was large enough for Coursers, suitable for Giants, But the Sandgorgon did not reappear. Covenant’s stunned ears were unable to pick out the slap of Nom’s feet as the beast charged alone into the stone city.
“Oh my God,” Linden muttered over and over again, “oh my God.” Pitchwife breathed, “Stone and Sea!” as if he had never seen a Sandgorgon at work before. Hollian’s eyes were full of fear. But Sunder had been taught violence and killing by the Clave, had never learned to love Revelstone: his face was bright with eagerness.
Half deafened by the pain of the stone. Covenant entered the Keep because now he had no choice left but to go forward or die. And he did not know what Nom would do to the city. At a wooden run, he crossed the courtyard and passed through the dust into Revelstone as if he were casting the die of his fate.
Instantly his companions arranged themselves for battle and followed him. He was only one stride ahead of Cail, two ahead of the First, Linden, and Honninscrave, as he broached the huge forehall of the na-Mhoram’s Keep.
It was as dark as a pit.
He knew that hall; it was the size of a cavern. It had been formed by Giants to provide a mustering-space for the forces of the former Lords. But the sun angled only a short distance into the broken entrance; and some trick of the high stone seemed to absorb the light; and there was no other illumination.
Too late, he understood that the forehall had been prepared to meet him.
With a crash, heavy wooden barriers slammed shut across the entryway. Sudden midnight echoed ar
ound the company.
Instinctively Covenant started to release a blaze from his ring. Then he yanked it back. His fire was entirely black now, as corrupt as poison. It shed no more light than the scream that swelled against his self-control, threatening to tear his throat and split Revelstone asunder.
For an instant like a seizure, no one moved or spoke. The things they could not see seemed to paralyze even the First and the Haruchai. Then Linden panted, “Sunder.” Her voice shook wildly; she sounded like a madwoman. “Use the krill. Use it now.”
Covenant tried to swing toward her. What is it? What do you see? But his imprecise ears missed her position in the dark. He was peering straight at Sunder when the krill sent a peal of vivid white ringing across the cavern.
He had no defense as Hollian’s shrill cry echoed after the light:
“The na-Mhoram’s Grim!”
Argent dazzled him. The Grim! He could not think or see. Such a sending had attacked the company once before; and under an open sky it had killed Memla na-Mhoram-in, had neariy slain Linden and Cail. In the enclosed space of the forehall—
And it would damage Revelstone severely. He had seen the remains of a village which had fallen under the Grim: During Stonedown, Hamako’s birthplace. The acid force of the na-Mhoram’s curse had eaten the entire habitation to rubble.
Covenant wheeled to face the peril; but still he could not see. His companions scrambled around him. For one mad instant, he believed they were fleeing. But then Cail took hold of his arm, ignoring the pain of suppressed fire; and he heard the First’s stern voice. “Mistweave, we must have more light. Chosen, instruct us. How may this force be combatted?”
From somewhere beyond his blindness, Covenant heard Linden reply, “Not with your sword.” The ague in her voice blurred the words; she had to fight to make them comprehensible. “We’ve got to quench it. Or give it something else to burn.”
Covenant’s vision cleared in time to see the black hot thunderhead of the Grim rolling toward the company just below the cavern’s ceiling.
Confined by the forehall, it appeared monstrously powerful.
Nom was nowhere to be seen; but Covenant’s knees felt vibrations through the floor as if the Sandgorgon were attacking the Keep’s inner chambers. Or as if Revelstone itself feared what Gibbon had unleashed.
From the entryway came the noise of belabored wood as Mistweave sought to break down the barrier which sealed the hall. But it had been fashioned with all the stoutness the Clave could devise. It creaked and cracked at Mistweave’s blows, but did not break.
When the boiling thunderhead was directly over the company, it shattered with a tremendous and silent concussion that would have flattened Covenant if Cail had not upheld him.
In that instant, the Grim became stark black flakes that floated murderously downward, bitter as chips of stone and corrosive as vitriol. The thick Grim-fall spanned the company.
Covenant wanted to raise fire to defend his friends. He believed he had no choice; venom and fear urged him to believe he had no choice. But he knew with a terrible certainty that if he unleashed the wild magic now he might never be able to call it back. All his other desperate needs would be lost. Loathing himself, he watched and did nothing as the dire flakes settled toward him and the people he loved.
Fole and another Haruchai impelled Linden to the nearest wall, as far as possible from the center of the Grim-fall. Harn tugged at Hollian, but she refused to leave Sunder. Cail was ready to dodge—ready to carry Covenant if necessary. The First and Honninscrave braced themselves to pit their Giantish immunity to fire against the flakes. Findail had disappeared as if he could sense Covenant’s restraint and cared about nothing else.
Glaring in the krill-light, the flakes wafted slowly downward.
And Sunder stood to meet them.
From his orcrest he drew a red shaft of Sunbane-fire and started burning the black bits out of the air.
His beam consumed every flake it touched. With astonishing courage or abandon, he faced the entire Grim himself. But the bits were falling by the thousands. They were too much for him. He could not even clear the air above his own head to protect himself and Hollian.
Then Pitchwife joined him. Incongruously crippled and valiant, the Giant also attacked the Grim, using as his only weapon the pouches of vitrim he had borne with him from Hamako’s rhyshyshim. One after another, he emptied them by spraying vitrim at the flakes.
Each flake the liquid touched became ash and drifted harmlessly away.
His visage wore a grimace of grief at the loss of his carefully-hoarded Waynhim roborant; but while it lasted he used it with deliberate extravagance.
Honninscrave slapped at the first flake which neared his head, then gave an involuntary cry as the black corrosive ate into his palm. The Grim had been conceived to destroy stone, and no mortal flesh was proof against it.
Around Covenant, the cavern started to reel. The irreconcilable desperation of his plight was driving him mad.
But at that instant a huge splintering crashed through the air; and the wooden barricade went down under Mistweave’s attack. More light washed into the forehall, improving the ability of the Haruchai to dodge the Grim. And wood followed the light. Fiercely Mistweave tore the barrier beam from timber and flung the pieces toward the company.
Haruchai intercepted the smaller fragments, used them as cudgels to batter Grim-flakes from the air. But the First, Honninscrave, and then Pitchwife snatched up the main timbers. At once, wood whirled around the company. The First swung a beam as tall as herself as if it were a flail. Honninscrave swept flakes away from Sunder and Hollian. Pitchwife pounced to Linden’s defense with an enormous club in each fist.
The Grim destroyed the wood almost instantly. Each flake tore the weapon which touched it to charcoal. But the broken barricade had been huge; and Mistweave attacked it with the fury of a demon, sending a constant rush of fragments skidding across the floor to the hands of the company.
Honninscrave took another flake on His shoulder and nearly screamed; yet he went on fighting as if he were back in the cave of the One Tree and still had a chance to save his brother.
Three of the Haruchai threw Linden from place to place like a child. In that way they were able to keep her out of the path of the Grim-fall more effectively than if one of them had tried to carry her. But their own movements were hampered. Two of them had already suffered burns; and as Covenant watched, a black bit seemed to shatter Fole’s left leg. He balanced himself on his right as if pain had no meaning and caught Linden when she was tossed to him.
Around the cavern, flakes began to strike the floor and detonate, ripping holes the size of Giant-hands in the smooth stone. Acrid smoke intensified the air as if the granite were smoldering.
Durris, Harn, and two more Haruchai whipped brands and staves around the Stonedownors. Sunder lashed a frenzy of red power at the Grim. The First and Honninscrave labored like berserkers, spending wood as rapidly as Mistweave fed it to them. Pitchwife followed his wife’s example, protected her back with boards and timbers. He still had one pouch of vitrim left.
And Cail bounded and ducked through the drifting peril with Covenant slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
Covenant could not catch his breath to shout. Cail’s shoulder forced the air from his lungs. But he had to make himself heard somehow. “Sunder,” he gasped. “Sunder.”
By intuition or inspiration, the Haruchai understood him.
With a strength and agility that defied the thickening Grim-fall, he bore Covenant toward the Graveler.
An instant later, Covenant was whirled to his feet beside Sunder. Vertigo squalled around him; he had no balance. His hands were too numb to feel the fire mounting in him at every moment. If he could have seen Sunder’s face, he would have cried out, for it was stretched and frantic with exhaustion. But the light of the krill blazed at Covenant’s eyes. In the chaos of the cavern, that untrammeled brightness was the only point on which he could
anchor himself.
The company had already survived miraculously long. But the Grim seemed to have no end, and soon even Giants and Haruchai would have to fall. This sending was far worse than the other one Covenant had experienced because it was enclosed—and because it was being fed directly by the Banefire. Through the stamp of feet and the burst of fires, he heard Linden cursing the pain of the people who kept her alive—people she could not help even though she suffered their hurts like acid on her own flesh. He had nowhere else to turn except to the krill.
Plunging toward Sunder, he got both hands on Loric’s blade. He did not feel the edges cut into his fingers, did not see the blood. He feared that his weight would topple Sunder; but somehow Sunder braced himself against the collision, managed to hold Covenant upright for a moment.
That moment was long enough. Before he fell tangled in the Graveler’s arms, Covenant sent one heart-rending blast of wild magic and risk through the gem of the krill.
His power was as black as the Grim now. But his desire was pure; and it struck the krill with such suddenness that the gem was not tainted by it. And from that gem, light rang like a piece of the clean sun. Its brightness seemed to tear asunder the veil of Revelstone’s gloom, lay bare the essential skeleton of the granite. Light shone through both flesh and stone, swept all shadow and obscurity away, made clear the farthest corners of the forehall, the heights of the vaulted ceiling. If his eyes had been equal to the argence, in that instant he would have seen the deep heart of the great Keep and Gibbon already fleeing to the place where he had chosen to hide himself. But Covenant was blind to such things. His forehead was butted against Sunder’s shoulder and he was falling.
When he roiled himself off Sunder’s panting chest, groped through dizziness to regain his feet, the moment of his power had passed. The cavern was lit only by the sun’s reflection from the entrance and the krill’s normal shining. His companions stood at various distances from him; but while his head spun he seemed to have no idea who they were.
But the Grim was gone. The black flakes had been swept away. And still he retained his grip on the wild magic.
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