Lord Foul's Bane cotc-1

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Covenant did not reply for a moment. Images of violence dizzied him. All the Woodhelvennin were dead-Cavewights- ur-viles- the warrior who had chosen to watch over him. He did not even know her name. Foamfollower had killed-he himself had killed five-five.

  He was trembling, but he needed to speak, needed to defend himself. He was sick with horror.

  “Foamfollower's right,” he rasped hoarsely. “This is Foul's doing.”

  No one appeared to hear him. The Bloodguard went to the Ranyhyn and brought their fallen comrade's mount close to the fire. Lifting the man gently, they set him on the Ranyhyn's back and bound him in place with clingor thongs. Then together they gave a silent salute, and the Ranyhyn galloped away, bearing its dead rider toward the Westron Mountains and Guards Gap-home.

  “Foul planned the whole thing.”

  When the Ranyhyn had vanished into the night, some of the Bloodguard tended the injuries of their mounts, while others resumed their sentry duty.

  Meanwhile, the warriors began moving among the Cavewights, finding the living among the dead. All that were not mortally wounded were dragged to their feet and chased away from the camp. The rest were piled on the north side of the tree for a pyre.

  “It means two things.” Covenant strove to master the quaver in his voice. “It's the same thing that he's doing to me. It's a lesson-like what happened to Llaura. Foul is telling us what he's doing to us because he's sure that knowing won't help. He wants to milk us for all the despair we're worth.”

  With the aid of two warriors, Prothall released Llaura and Pietten from their tomb. Llaura looked exhausted to the limit; she was practically prostrate on her feet. But little Pietten ran his hands over the blood-wet grass, then licked his fingers.

  Covenant turned away with a groan. “The other thing is that Foul really wants us to get at Drool. To die or not. He tricked Drool into this attack so that he wouldn't be busy defending himself. So Foul must know what we're doing, even if Drool doesn't.”

  Prothall seemed troubled by the occasional distant screams, but Mhoram did not notice them. While the rest of the company set about their tasks, the Lord went and knelt beside Variol and Tamarantha. He bent over his parents, and under his red-stained robe his body was rigid.

  “I tell you, this is all part of Foul's plan. Hellfire! Aren't you listening to me?”

  Abruptly, Mhoram stood and faced Covenant. He moved as if he were about to hurl a curse at Covenant's head. But his eyes bled with tears, and his voice wept as he said, “They are dead. Variol and Tamarantha my parents-father and mother of me, body and soul.”

  Covenant could see the hue of death on their old skin.

  “It cannot be!” one of the warriors cried. “I saw. No weapon touched them. They were kept by the Bloodguard.”

  Prothall hastened to examine the two Lords. He touched their hearts and heads, then sagged and sighed, “Nevertheless.”

  Both Variol and Tamarantha were smiling.

  The warriors stopped what they were doing; in silence, the Eoman put aside its own fatigue and grief to stand bowed in respect before Mhoram and his dead. Stooping, Mhoram lifted both Variol and Tamarantha in his arms. Their thin bones were light in his embrace, as if they had lost the weight of mortality. On his cheeks, tears gleamed orangely, but his shoulders were steady, un-sob-shaken, to uphold his parents.

  Covenant's mind was beclouded. He wandered in mist, and his words were wind-torn from him. “Do you mean to tell me that we-that I-we-? For a couple of corpses?”

  Mhoram showed no sign of having heard. But a scowl passed like a spasm across Prothall's face, and Quaan stepped to the Unbeliever's side at once, gripped his elbow, whispered into his ear, “If you speak again, I will break your arm.”

  “Don't touch me,” Covenant returned. But his voice was forceless. He submitted, swirling in lost fog., Around him, the company took on an attitude of ritual. Leaving his staff with one of the warriors, High Lord Prothall retrieved the staffs of the dead Lords and held them like an offering across his arms. And Mhoram turned toward the blaze of the tree with Variol and Tamarantha clasped erect in his embrace. The silence quivered painfully. After a long moment, he began to sing. His rough song sighed like a river, and he sang hardly louder than the flow of water between quiet banks.

  Death reaps the beauty of the world—

  bundles old crops to hasten new.

  Be still, heart:

  hold peace.

  Growing is better than decay:

  I hear the blade which severs life from life.

  Be still, peace:

  hold heart.

  Death is passing on—

  the making way of life and time for life.

  Hate dying and killing, not death.

  Be still, heart:

  make no expostulation.

  Hold peace and grief

  and be still.

  As he finished, his shoulders lurched as if unable to bear their burden without giving at least one sob to the dead. “Ah, Creator!” he cried in a voice full of bereavement. “How can I honour them? I am stricken at heart, and consumed with the work that I must do. You must honour them-for they have honoured you.”

  At the edge of the firelight, the Ranyhyn Hynaril gave a whinny like a cry of grief. The great roan mare reared and pawed the air with her forelegs, then whirled and galloped away eastward.

  Then Mhoram murmured again,

  Be still, heart:

  make no expostulation.

  Hold peace and grief

  and be still.

  Gently, he laid Variol on the grass and lifted Tamarantha in both arms. Calling hoarsely, “Hail!” he placed her into the cleft of the burning tree. And before the flames could blacken her age-etched skin, he lifted Variol and set him beside her, calling again, “Hail!” Their shared smile could be seen for a moment before the blaze obscured it. So they lay together in consummation.

  Already dead, Covenant groaned. That Bloodguard was killed. Oh, Mhoram! In his confusion, he could not distinguish between grief and anger.

  His eyes now dry, Mhoram turned to the company, and his gaze seemed to focus on Covenant. “My friends, be still at heart,” he said comfortingly. “Hold peace for all your grief. Variol and Tamarantha are ended. Who could deny them? They knew the time of their death. They read the close of their lives in the ashes of Soaring Woodhelven, and were glad to serve us with their last sleep. They chose to draw the attack upon themselves so that we might live. Who will say that the challenge which they met was not great? Remember the Oath, and hold Peace.”

  Together, the Eoman made the heart-opening salute of farewell, arms spread wide as if uncovering their hearts to the dead. Then Quaan cried, “Hail!” and led his warriors back to the work of piling Cavewights and burying Woodhelvennin.

  After the Eoman had left, High Lord Prothall said to Mhoram, “Lord Variol's staff. From father to son. Take it. If we survive this Quest to reach a time of peace, master it. It has been the staff of a High Lord.”

  Mhoram accepted it with a bow.

  Prothall paused for a moment, irresolute, then turned to Covenant. “You have used Lord Tamarantha's staff. Take it for use again. You will find it readier to aid your ring than your Hirebrand's staff. The lillianrill work in other ways than the Lords, and you are ur-Lord, Thomas Covenant.”

  Remembering the red blaze which had raged out of that wood to kill and kill, Covenant said, “Burn it.”

  A touch of danger tightened Mhoram's glance. But Prothall shrugged gently, took Lord Tamarantha's staff to the fire, and placed it into the cleft of the tree.

  For an instant, the metal ends of the staff shone as if they were made of verdigris. Then Mhoram cried, “Ware the tree!” Quickly, the company moved away from the fiery spars.

  The staff gave a sharp report like the bursting of bonds. Blue flame detonated in the cleft, and the riven tree dropped straight to the ground in fragments, collapsing as if its core had been finally killed. The heap of wood burned furi
ously.

  From a distance, Covenant heard Birinair snort, “The Unbeliever's doing,” as if that were a calumny.

  Don't touch me, he muttered to himself.

  He was afraid to think. Around him, darkness lurked like vulture wings made of midnight. Horrors threatened; he felt ghoul-begotten. He could not bear the bloodiness of his ring, could not bear what he had become. He searched about him as if he were looking for a fight.

  Unexpectedly, Saltheart Foamfollower returned.

  He shambled out of the night like a massacre metaphored in flesh-an icon of slaughter. He was everywhere smeared in blood, and much of it was his own. The wound on his forehead covered his face with a dark, wet sheen, and through the stain his deep eyes looked sated and miserable. Shreds of Cavewight flesh still clung to his fingers.

  Pietten pointed at the Giant, and twisted his lips in a grin that showed his teeth. At once, Llaura grabbed his hand, pulled him away to a bed which the warriors had made for them.

  Prothall and Mhoram moved solicitously toward the Giant, but he pushed past them to the fire. He knelt near the blaze as if his soul needed warming, and his groan as he sank to his knees sounded like a rock cracking.

  Covenant saw his chance, approached the Giant. Foamfollower's manifest pain brought his confused, angry grief to a pitch that demanded utterance. He himself had killed five Cavewights, five-! His ring was full of blood. “Well,” he snarled, “that must've been fun. I hope you enjoyed it.”

  From the other side of the camp, Quaan hissed threateningly. Prothall moved to Covenant's side, said softly, “Do not torment him. Please. He is a Giant. This is the caamora, the fire of grief. Has there not been enough pain this night?”

  I killed five Cavewights! Covenant cried in bereft fury.

  But Foamfollower was speaking as if entranced by the fire and unable to hear them. His voice had a keening sound; he knelt before the fire in an attitude of lament.

  “Ah, brothers and sisters, did you behold me? Did you see, my people? We have come to this. Giants, I am not alone. I feel you in me, your will in mine. You would not have done differently-not felt other than I felt, not grieved apart from my grief. This is the result. Stone and Sea! We are diminished. Lost Home and weak seed have made us less than we were. Do we remain faithful, even now? Ah, faithful? My people, my people, if steadfastness leads to this? Look upon me! Do you find me admirable? I stink of hate and unnecessary death.” A chill blew through his words. Tilting back his head, he began a low chant.

  His threnody went on until Covenant felt driven to the brink of screaming. He wanted to hug or kick the Giant to make him cease. His fingers itched with mounting frenzy. Stop! he moaned. I can't stand it!

  A moment later, Foamfollower bowed his head and fell silent. He remained still for a long time as if he were preparing himself. Then he asked flatly, “Who has been lost?”

  “Very few,” Prothall answered. “We were fortunate. Your valour served us well.”

  “Who?” Foamfollower ached.

  With a sigh, Prothall named the five warriors, the Bloodguard, Variol and Tamarantha.

  “Stone and Sea!” the Giant cried. With a convulsion of his shoulders, he thrust his hands into the fire.

  The warriors gasped; Prothall stiffened at Covenant's side. But this was the Giantish caamora, and no one dared interfere.

  Foamfollower's face stretched in agony, but he held himself still. His eyes seemed to bulge in their sockets; yet he kept his hands in the fire as if the blaze could heal, or at least sear, the blood on them, cauterize if it could not assuage the stain of shed life. But his pain showed in his forehead. The hard heart-pulse of hurt broke the crust on his wound; new blood dripped around his eyes and down his cheeks into his beard.

  Panting, Hellfire hellfire! Covenant pushed away from Prothall. Stiffly, he went close to the kneeling Giant. With a fierce effort that made him sound caustic in spite of his intent, he said, “Now somebody really ought to laugh at you.” His jutting head was barely as high as the Giant's shoulder.

  For a moment, Foamfollower gave no sign of having heard. But then his shoulders slumped. With a slow exertion almost as though he were reluctant to stop torturing himself, he withdrew his hands. They were unharmed-for some reason, his flesh was impervious to flame-but the blood was gone from them; they looked as clean as if they had been scrubbed by exoneration.

  His fingers were still stiff with hurt, and he flexed them painfully before he turned his bloody face toward Covenant. As if he were appealing a condemnation, he met the Unbeliever's impacted gaze and asked, “Do you feel nothing?”

  “Feel?” Covenant groaned. “I'm a leper.”

  “Not even for tiny Pietten? A child?”

  His appeal made Covenant want to throw his arms around the Giant, accept this terrible sympathy as some kind of answer to his dilemma. But he knew it was not enough, knew in the deepest marrow of his leprosy that it did not suffice. “We killed them too,” he croaked. “I killed-I'm no different than they are.”

  Abruptly he turned, walked away into the darkness to hide his shame. The battleground was a fit and proper place for him; his nostrils were numb to the stink of death. After a time, he stumbled, then lay down among the dead, on blood surrounded by graves and pyres.

  Children! He was the cause of their screams and their agony. Foul had attacked the Woodhelven because of his white gold ring. Not again-I won't. His voice was empty of weeping.

  I will not do any more killing.

  Eighteen: The Plains of Ra

  DESPITE the battleground-despite the acrid smoke of flame and flesh and power-despite the nearby trenches, where the dead were graved like lumps of charred agony, piled wearily into the earth like accumulated pain for which only the ground could now find use or surcease-despite his own inner torn and trampled ground-Covenant slept. For what was left of the night, the other survivors of the battle laboured to bury or burn the various dead, but Covenant slept. Restless unconsciousness arose from within him like a perpetually enumerated VSE, and he spent his repose telling in dreams that rigid round: left arm shoulder to wrist, left hand palm and back, each finger, right arm, shirt, chest, left leg.

  He awoke to meet a dawn which wore the aspect of an uncomfortable tomb. Shuddering himself to his feet, he found that all the work of burying was done; each of the trenches was filled, covered with dirt, and planted with a sapling which Birinair had found somewhere. Now most of the warriors lay awkwardly on the ground, in fatigue searching themselves for some kind of strength. But Prothall and Mhoram were busy cooking a meal, and the Bloodguard were examining and readying the horses.

  A spate of disgust crossed Covenant's face-disgust that he had not done his share of the work. He looked at his robe; the samite was stiff and black with encrusted blood. Fit apparel for a leper, he thought, an outcast.

  He knew that it was past time for him to make a decision. He had to determine where he stood in his impossible dilemma. Propped on his staff in the sepulchral dawn, he felt that he had reached the end of his evasions. He had lost track of his self-protective habits, lost the choice of hiding his ring, lost even his tough boots-and he had shed blood. He had brought down doom on Soaring Woodhelven. He had been so preoccupied with his flight from madness that he had not faced the madness toward which his fleeing took him.

  He had to keep moving; he had learned that. But going on posed the same impenetrable problem. Participate, and go mad. Or refuse to participate, and go mad. He had to make a decision, — find bedrock somewhere and cling to it. He could not accept the Land-and could not deny it. He needed an answer. Without it, he would be trapped like Llaura-forced to the tune of Foul's glee to lose himself in order to avoid losing himself.

  Then Mhoram looked up from his stirring and saw the disgust and dismay on Covenant's face. Gently, the Lord said, “What troubles you, my friend?”

  For a moment, Covenant stared at Mhoram. The Lord looked as if he had become old overnight. The smoke and dirt of battle marked hi
s face, accentuating the lines on his forehead and around his eyes like a sudden aggravation of wear and decay. His eyes seemed dulled by fatigue. But his lips retained their kindness, and his movements, though draped in such a rent and bloodied robe, were steady.

  Covenant flinched instinctively away from the tone in which Mhoram said, my friend. He could not afford to be anyone's friend. And he flinched away, too, from his impulse to ask what had caused Tamarantha's staff to become so violent in his hands. He feared the answer to that question. To cover his wincing, he turned roughly away, and went in search of Foamfollower.

  The Giant was sitting with his back to the last standing, extinguished fragment of Soaring Woodhelven. Grime and blood darkened his face; his skin had the colour of a flaw in the heart of a tree. But the wound on his forehead dominated his appearance. Ripped flesh hung over his brows like a foliage of pain, and through the wound; drops of new blood seeped as if red thoughts were making their way from a crack in his skull. He had his right arm wrapped around his great jug of diamondraught, and his eyes followed Llaura as she tended little Pietten.

  Covenant approached the Giant; but before he could speak, Foamfollower said, “Have you considered them? Do you know what has been done to them?”

  The question raised black echoes in Covenant's mind. “I know about her.”

  “And Pietten? Tiny Pietten? A child?”

  Covenant shrugged awkwardly.

  “Think, Unbeliever!” His voice was full, of swirling mists. “I am lost. You can understand.”

  With an effort, Covenant replied, “The same thing. Just exactly what's been done to us. And to Llaura.” A moment later he added mordantly, “And to the Cavewights.” Foamfollower's eyes shied, and Covenant went on, “We're all going to destroy-whatever we want to preserve. The essence of Foul's method. Pietten is a present to us-an example of what we're going to do to the Land when we try to save it. Foul is that confident. And prophecies like that are self fulfilling.”