THE POWER THAT PRESERVES

by default

  "Not you!" Covenant responded urgently. He fought the pressure until he feared his lungs would break, but he could not free himself. Without his ring, he felt as crippled as if his arms had been amputated. Without it, he weighed less than nothing in the scales of the Land's fate. "Not you!" he gasped again. "I can hear you, Triock! You! She isn't afraid of you-she isn't holding you. Triock! Stop her!"

  Again the Ravers laughed. But this time Covenant heard the strain in their voices. Heaving against his captivity, he managed to wrench his head around far enough to look at Whane and Lal.

  They still stood a safe distance from the Colossus. Neither made any move to help Covenant or oppose Elena. Both went on chuckling as if they could not help themselves. Yet their exertion was unmistakable. They were white-lipped and rigid; beads of effort ran down their faces. With all the long pride of their people, the Ramen were struggling to break free.

  And behind them, Foamfollower and Bannor strove for freedom also. Somehow, both of them had found the strength to move slightly. Foamfollower's head was bowed, and he clenched his face with one hand as if he were trying to alter the shape of his skull. Banner's fingers clawed at his sides; his face grew taut, baring his teeth. Urgently, desperately, they fought Elena's power.

  Their ordeal felt terrible to Covenant-terrible and hopeless. Like the Ramen, they were beyond the limits of what they could do. Pressure mounted in them, radiated from them. It was so acute that Covenant feared their hearts would rupture. And they had no chance of success. The power of the Staff increased to crush every extravagance of their self-expenditure.

  Their futility hurt Covenant more than his own. He was accustomed to impotence, inured to it, but Bannor and Foamfollower were not. The stark vision of their defeat almost made him cry out in anguish. He wanted to shout to them, beg them to stop before they drove themselves soul-mad.

  But the next instant a surge of new hope shot through him as he suddenly understood what they were doing. They knew they could not escape, were not trying to escape. They fought toward another goal. Elena was paying no attention to them; she concentrated on preparing for the destruction of the Colossus. So she was not actively exerting herself to imprison them. She had simply left her compulsion in the air and turned her back.

  Foamfollower and Bannor were drawing on this compulsion, using it-using it up. As the Giant and the Bloodguard strained for freedom, strove with all their personal might, Triock jerked his head from side to side, quivered in a fever of passion, snapped his jaws as if he were trying to tear hunks of domination out of the air-and began to move toward Elena.

  The Ravers made no attempt to stop him. They could not; the struggles of the Ramen gave them no leeway in which to act.

  Triock strained as he moved as if his bones were being torn asunder, and he quavered imploringly again and again, "Elena? Elena?" But he moved; he advanced step by step toward her.

  Covenant watched him in an agony of suspense.

  Before he came within arm's reach of her, she said severely, "Stop.''

  Swaying in a gale of conflicting demands, Triock halted.

  "If you resist me one more step," she grated, "I will tear your heart from your pathetic old body and feed it to Herem and Jehannum while you observe them and beg me to let you die."

  Triock was weeping now, shaking with importunate sobs. "Elena? Elena?"

  Without even glancing at him, she resumed her song.

  But the next instant, something snatched at her attention, spun her away from the Colossus. Her face pointed lividly toward the west. Surprise and anger contorted her features. For a moment, she stared in speechless indignation at the intrusion.

  Then she brandished the Staff of Law. "The Lords strike back!" she howled furiously. "Samadhi is threatened! They dare!"

  Covenant gaped at the information, at her knowledge of the siege of Revelstone. But he had no time to assimilate it.

  "Foul's blood!" she raged. "Blast them, Raver!" Immense forces gathered in the Staff, mounting to be hurled across the distance to samadhi Sheol's aid.

  For that instant, she neglected her compulsion of the people around her.

  The blindness lost its hold on Bannor and Foamfollower. They tottered, lurched, started into motion. The Ravers tried to react, but could not move quickly enough against the resistance of the Ramen.

  Covenant felt the pressure on his back ease. At once, he rolled out from under it. Springing to his feet, he launched himself toward Elena.

  But Triock was the only one close enough to her to take advantage of her lapse. With a wild cry, he chopped both fists down at her left hand.

  His hands passed through her spectral flesh and struck the ring. The unexpectedness of the blow tore the solid band from her surprised fingers. It dropped free.

  He dove after it, got one hand on it, flicked it away toward Covenant as his body slapped the hard ground.

  Elena' s reaction came instantly. Before Triock could roll, try to evade her, she stabbed the Staff down at him, hit him in the center of his back. Power flared through him, shattering his spine.

  Almost in the same motion, she swung the Staff up again, caught it in a combat grip as she whirled to face Covenant.

  His start toward her almost made him miss the ring. It went past him on one side, but he skidded and pounced on it, scooped it up before she could stop him. With his wedding band clenched in his fist, he braced himself to meet her attack.

  She regarded him momentarily, then chose not to exert herself against him. With one wave of the Staff, she reimprisoned Foamfollower and Bannor, quenched the rebellion of the Ramen. Then she dropped her guard as if she no longer needed it. Her voice shook with anger, but she was steady as she said, "It will not avail him. He knows not how to awaken its might. Herem, Jehannum-I leave him to you."

  In horrid unison, the two Ravers snarled their satisfaction, their hunger for him. Together, they moved slowly toward him.

  He was caught between them and Elena.

  So that he would not lose his ring again, he pushed it onto his wedding finger. He had lost weight; his fingers were gaunt, and the ring hung on him insecurely, as if it might fall off at any moment. Yet his need for it had never been greater. He clenched his fist around it and retreated before the advance of the Ravers.

  In the back of his mind, he was sure that Triock was not dead. Triock was his summoner; he would disappear from the Land as soon as the Stonedownor died. But Triock surely had only moments of life left. Without knowing how to do it, Covenant wanted to make those moments count.

  He backed away from the Ravers, toward Elena. She stood at rest near the Colossus, observing him. Glee and anger were balanced in her face. The Ravers came at him step by slow step, with their arms extended hungrily, sarcastically, inviting him to abandon resistance and rush into the oblivion of their grasp.

  They advanced; he retreated; she stood where she was, defying him to touch her. His ring hung lifeless on his finger as if it were a thing of metal and futility, nothing more-a talisman devoid of meaning in his hands. A rising tide of protest filled him with ineffectual curses.

  Hellfire. Hellfire. Hell and blood!

  Impulsively, without knowing why he did it, he shrieked into the gray wind, "Forestall Help me!"

  At once, the clenched crown of the Colossus burst into flame. For an instant while Herem and Jehannum yowled, the monolith blazed with verdant fire-a conflagration the color of leaves and grass flourishing, green that had nothing in common with Lord Foul's emerald Illearth Stone. Raw, fertile aromas crackled in the air like violent spring.

  Abruptly, two bolts of force raged out of the blaze, sprang like lightning at the Ravers. In a coruscating welter of sparks and might, the bolts struck the chests of Lal and Whane.

  The monolith's power flamed at their hearts until the mortal flesh of the Ramen was incinerated, flash-burned into nothingness. Then the bolts dropped, the conflagration vanished.

  Herem and Jehannum were gone.

  The sud
den blast and vanishing of the fire staggered Covenant. Forgetting his peril, he stared dumbly about him. The Ramen were dead. More blood, more lives sacrificed to his impotence. He wanted to cry out, No!

  Some instinct warned him. He ducked, and the Staff of Law hissed past his head.

  He jumped away, turned, caught his balance. Elena was advancing toward him. She held the Staff poised in both hands. Her face was full of murder.

  She could have felled him with an exertion of the Staff's might, ravaged him where he stood by unleashing her power against him. But she was too mad with rage for such fighting. She wanted to crush him physically, beat him to death with the strength of her own arms. As he faced her, she gestured toward Foamfollower and Banner without even glancing in their direction. They crumpled like puppets with cut strings, fell on their faces and lay still. Then she raised the Staff over his head like an ax and hacked at Covenant.

  With a desperate fling of his arm, he deflected the Staff so that it slammed against his right shoulder rather than his head. The force of the blow seemed to paralyze his whole right side, but he grappled for the Staff with his left hand, caught hold of it, prevented her from snatching it back for another strike.

  Quickly, she shifted her hands on the Staff and threw her weight onto the wood to take advantage of his defense. Bearing down on his shoulder, she drove him to his knees.

  He braced his numb arm on the ground and strained to resist her, tried to get his feet under him. But he was too weak. She changed the direction of her pressure so that it jammed squarely against his throat. He had to fight the Staff with both hands to keep his larynx from being crushed. Slowly, almost effortlessly, she bent him back.

  Then she had him flat on the ground. He pushed against the Staff with all his waning strength, but he could not stop her. His breathing was cut off. His bloodied eyes throbbed in their sockets as he stared at her ferocity.

  Her gaze was focused on him as if he were food for the rankest hunger of her ill soul. Through it, he seemed to see the Despiser slavering in triumph and scorn. And yet her eyes showed something else as well. Triock had told the truth about her. Behind the savagery of her glare, he felt the last unconquerable core of her sobbing with revulsion.

  He lacked the strength to save himself. If he could have hated her, met her fury with fury, he might have been capable of one convulsive heave, one thrust to buy himself another moment or two of life. But he could not. She was his daughter; he loved her. He had put her where she was as surely as if he had been a conscious servant of the Despiser all along. She was about to kill him, and he loved her. The only thing left for him was to die without breaking faith with himself.

  He used his last air and his last resistance to croak, "You don't even exist."

  His words inflamed her like an ultimate denial. In mad fury, she eased the pressure for an instant while she gathered all her force, all her strength, and all the power of the Staff, for one crush which would eradicate the offense of his life. She took a deep breath as if she were inhaling illimitable might, then threw her weight and muscle and power, her very Foul-given existence, through the Staff at his throat.

  But his hands were clenched on the Staff. His ring pressed the wood. When her force touched his white gold, the wild magic erupted like an uncapped volcano.

  His senses went blank at the immensity of the blast. Yet not one flame or thrust of it touched him; all the detonation went back through the Staff at Elena.

  It did not hurl her off him; it was not that kind of power. But it tore through the rune-carved wood of the Staff like white sun-fire, rent the Staff fiber from fiber as if its Law were nothing but a shod bundle of splinters. A sharp riving shook the atmosphere, so that even the Colossus seemed to recoil from this unleashing of power.

  The Staff of Law turned to ash in dead Elena's hands.

  At once, the wind lurched as if the eruption of wild magic were an arrow in its bosom. With flutters and gusts and silent cries, it tumbled to the ground, came to an end as if the raw demon of winter had been stricken out of the air with one shaft.

  A whirl of force sprang up around Elena, mounted like a wind devil with her in its center. Her death had come back for her; the Law she had broken was sucking her out of life again. As Covenant watched-stunned and uncomprehending, almost blinded by his reprieve-she began to dissipate. Particle by particle, her being vanished into the gyre, fled into dissolution. But while she faded and failed, lost her ill existence, she found the solidity for one final cry.

  "Covenant," she called like a lorn voice of desolation. "Beloved! Strike a blow for me!"

  Then she was gone, reabsorbed into death. The gyre grew pale, paler, until it had disappeared in unruffled air.

  Covenant was left alone with his victims.

  Involuntarily, through means over which he had no control, he had saved himself-and had allowed his friends to be struck down. He felt chastened, frail, as devoid of victory as if he had actively slain the woman he loved.

  So many people had sacrificed themselves.

  He knew that Triock was still alive, so he climbed painfully to his feet and stumbled over to the fallen Stonedownor. Triock's breathing rattled like blood in his throat; he would be dead soon. Covenant seated himself on the ground and lifted Triock so that the man's head rested on his lap.

  Triock's face was disfigured by the force which had smashed him. His charred skin peeled off his skull in places, and his eyes had been seared. From the slack dark hole of his mouth came faint plumes of smoke like the fleeing wisps of his soul.

  Covenant hugged Triock's head with both arms and began to weep.

  After a time, the Stonedownor sensed in some way who held him. Through the death thickening in his gullet, he struggled to speak. "Covenant."

  His voice was barely audible, but Covenant fought back his tears to respond, "I hear you."

  "You are not to blame. She was-flawed from birth."

  That was as far as his mercy could go. After one final wisp, the smoke faded away. Covenant held him, and knew he had no pulse or breath of life left.

  He understood that Triock had forgiven him. The Stonedownor was not to blame if his gift gave no consolation. In addition to everything else, Covenant was responsible for the flaw of Elena's birth. She was the daughter of a crime which could never be undone. So he could do nothing but sit with Triock's unanswerable head in his lap, and weep while he waited for the reversal of his summons, the end which would reave him of the Land.

  But no end came. In the past, he had always begun to fail as soon as his summoner died; but now he remained. Moments passed, and still he was undiminished. Gradually, he realized that this time he would not disappear, that for reasons he did not understand, he had not yet lost his chance.

  He did not have to accept Elena's fate. It was not the last word-not

  yet.

  When Bannor and Foamfollower stirred, groaned, began to regain consciousness, he made himself move. Carefully, deliberately, he took his ring from his wedding finger and placed it on the index finger of his halfhand, so that it would be less likely to slip off.

  Then, amid all his grief and regret, he stood up on bones that could bear anything, and hobbled over to help his friends.

  [SEVENTEEN] The Spoiled Plains

  Bannor recovered more quickly than Foamfollower. In spite of his advancing age, the toughness of the Haruchai was still in him; after Covenant had chafed his wrists and neck for a moment, he shrugged off his unconsciousness and became almost instantly alert. He met Covenant's teary gaze with characteristic dispassion, and together they went to do what they could for the Giant.

  Foamfollower lay moaning on the ground in a fever of revulsion. Spasms bared his teeth, and his massive hands thrashed erratically against his chest as if he were trying to smite some fatal spot of wrong in himself. He seemed in danger of harming himself. So Bannor sat on the ground at the Giant's head, braced his feet on Foamfollower's shoulders, and caught his flailing arms by the wrists. Bann
er held the Giant's arms still while Covenant sat on Foamfollower's chest and slapped his snarling face.

  After a moment of resistance, Foamfollower let out a roar. Wrenching savagely, he heaved Bannor over Covenant's head, knocked the Unbeliever off his chest, and lurched panting to his feet.

  Covenant retreated from the threat of Foamfollower's fists. But as the Giant blinked and panted, he recovered himself, recognized his friends. "Covenant?" he gritted, "Bannor?" as if he feared they were Ravers.

  "Foamfollower," Covenant responded thickly. Tears of relief streamed down his gaunt cheeks. "You're all right."

  Slowly, Foamfollower relaxed as he saw that his friends were unmastered and whole. "Stone and Sea!" he gasped weakly, shuddering as he breathed. "Ah! My friends-have I harmed you?"

  Covenant could not answer; he was choked with fresh weeping. He stood where he was and let Foamfollower watch his tears; he had no other way to tell the Giant how he felt. After a moment, Bannor replied for him, "We are well-as well as may be. You have done us no injury."

  "And the-the specter of High Lord Elena? The Staff of Law? How is it that we yet live?"

  "Gone." Covenant fought to control himself. "Destroyed."

  Foamfollower's face was full of sympathy. "Ah, no, my friend," he sighed. "She is not destroyed. The dead cannot be destroyed."

  "I know. I know that." Covenant gritted his teeth, hugged his chest, until he passed the crest of his emotion. Then it began to subside, and he regained some measure of steadiness. "She's just dead-dead again. But the Staff-it was destroyed. By wild magic." Half fearing the reaction of his friends to this information, he added, "I didn't do it. It wasn't my doing. She-" He faltered. He had heard Mhoram say, You are the white gold. How could he be sure now what was or was not his doing?

  But his revelation only drew a strange glint from Banner's flat eyes. The Haruchai had always considered weapons unnecessary, even corruptive. Bannor found satisfaction rather than regret in the passing of the Staff. And Foamfollower shrugged the explanation aside, as if it were unimportant compared to his friend's distress. "Ah, Covenant, Covenant," he groaned. "How can you endure? Who can withstand such things?"