The Illearth War t1cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Covenant jumped to his feet as if he had been stung. “I deny that! Just because I don't affirm the Land or whatever, carry on like some unravelled fanatic and foam at the mouth for a chance to fight like Troy does, doesn't mean assuming that there's some kind of justice in the labels and titles which you people spoon around-assuming you can put a name at all to this gut-broken whatever that I can't even articulate much less prove to myself. That is not what Unbelief means.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means-” For a moment, Covenant stopped, choking on the words as if his heart suffered some blockage. Then he reached forward and shaded the gem of the krill with his hands so that it did not shine in his eyes. In a voice suddenly and terribly suffused with the impossibility of any tears which would have eased him, he shouted, “It means I've got to withhold — to discount-to keep something for myself! Because I don't know why!” The next instant, he dropped back into his chair and bowed his head, hiding it in his arms as if he were ashamed.

  “ Why?” Mhoram said softly. "That is not so hard a matter here, thus distant from `how.' Some of our legends hint at one answer. They tell of the beginning of the Earth, in a time soon after the birth of Time, when the Earth's Creator found that his brother and Enemy, the Despiser, had marred his creation by placing banes of surpassing evil deep within it. In outrage and pain, the Creator cast his Enemy down-out of the universal heavens onto the Earth-and imprisoned him here within the arch of Time. Thus, as the legends tell it, Lord Foul came to the Land."

  As he spoke, he felt that he was not replying to Covenant's question-that the question had a direction he could not see. But he continued, offering Covenant the only answer he possessed.

  "It is clear now that Lord Foul lusts to strike back at his brother, the Creator. And at last, after ages of bootless wars carried on out of malice, out of a desire to harm the creation because he could not touch the Creator, Lord Foul has found a way to achieve his end, to destroy the arch of Time, unbind his exile, and return to his forbidden home, for spite and woe. When the Staff of Law, lost by Kevin at the Desecration, came within his influence, he gained a chance to bridge the gap between worlds-a chance to bring white gold into the Land.

  “I tell you simply: it is Lord Foul's purpose to master the wild magic-'the anchor of the arch of life that spans and masters Time'-and with it bring Time to an end, so that he may escape his bondage and carry his lust throughout the universe. To do this, he must defeat you, must wrest the white gold from you. Then all the Land and all the Earth will surely fall.”

  Covenant raised his head, and Mhoram tried to anticipate his next question. “But how? — how does the Despiser mean to accomplish this purpose? Ah, my friend, that I do not know. He will choose ways which resemble our own desires so closely that we will not resist. We will not be able to distinguish between his service and our own until we are bereft of all aids but you, whether you choose to help us or no.”

  “But why?” Covenant repeated. “Why me?”

  Again, Mhoram felt that his answer did not lie in the direction of Covenant's question. But still he offered it, humbly, knowing that it was all he had to give his tormented visitor.

  "My friend, it is in my heart that you were chosen by the Creator. That is our hope. Lord Foul taught Drool to do the summoning because he desired white gold. But Drool's hands were on the Staff, not Lord Foul's. The Despiser could not control who was summoned. So if you were chosen, you were chosen by the Creator.

  “Consider. He is the Creator, the maker of the Earth. How can he stand careless and see his making destroyed? Yet he cannot reach his hand to help us here. That is the law of Time. If he breaks the arch to touch the Land with his power, Time will end, and the Despiser will be free. So he must resist Lord Foul elsewhere. With you, my friend.”

  “Damnation,” Covenant mumbled.

  “Yet even this you must understand. He cannot touch you here, to teach or help you, for the same reason that he cannot help us. Nor can he touch or teach or help you in your own world. If he does, you will not be free. You will become his tool, and your presence will break the arch of Time, unbinding Despite. So you were chosen. The Creator believes that your uncoerced volition and strength will save us in the end. If he is wrong, he has put the weapon of his own destruction into Lord Foul's hands.”

  After a long silence, Covenant muttered, “A hell of a risk.”

  “Ah, but he is the Creator. How could he do otherwise?”

  “He could burn the place down, and try again. But I guess you don't think gods are that humble. Or do you call it arrogance-to burn-? Never mind. I seem to remember that not all the Lords believe in this Creator as you do.”

  “That is true. But you came to me. I answer as I can.”

  “I know. Don't mind me. But tell me this. What would you do in my place?”

  “No,” said Mhoram. At last he moved his chair to one side, so that he could see Covenant's face. Gazing into the Unbeliever's unsteady features, he replied, “That I will not answer. Who can declare? Power is a dreadful thing. I cannot judge you with an answer. I have not yet judged myself.”

  The instability of Covenant's expression momentarily resolved into seeking. But he did not speak, and after a time Mhoram decided to risk another question. “Thomas Covenant, why do you take this so? Why are you so hurt? You say that the Land is a dream a delusion-that we have no real life. Then do not be concerned. Accept the dream, and laugh. When you awaken, you will be free.”

  “No,” Covenant said. “I recognized something in what you said-I'm starting to understand this. Listen. This whole crisis here is a struggle inside me. By hell, I've been a leper so long, I'm starting to think that the way people treat lepers is justified. So I'm becoming my own enemy, my own Despiser-working against myself when I try to stay alive by agreeing with the people who make it so hard. That's why I'm dreaming this. Catharsis. Work out the dilemma subconsciously, so that when I wake up I'll be able to cope.”

  He stood up suddenly, and began to pace Mhoram's ascetic chamber with a voracious gleam in his eyes. “Sure. That's it. Why didn't I think of it before? I've been telling myself all the time that this is escapism, suicide. But that's not it-that's not it at all. Just forget that I'm losing every one of the habits that keep me alive. This is dream therapy.”

  But abruptly a grimace of pain clutched his face. “Hellfire!” he-rasped intensely. “That sounds like a story I should have burned-back when I was burning stories-when I still had stories to burn.”

  Mhoram heard the anguished change, the turning to dust, in Covenant's tone, and he stood to reach out toward his visitor. But he did not need to move; Covenant came almost aimlessly in his direction, as if within the four walls of the chamber he had lost his way. He stopped at the table near Mhoram, and gazed miserably at the krill. His voice shook.

  “I don't believe it. That's just another easy way to die. I already know too many of them.”

  He seemed to stumble, though he was standing still. He lurched forward, and caught himself on Mhoram's shoulder. For a moment, he clung there, pressing his forehead into Mhoram's robe. Then Mhoram lowered him into a chair.

  “Ah, my friend, how can I help you? I do not understand.”

  Covenant's lips trembled, but with a visible effort he regained control of his voice. “Just tired. I haven't eaten since yesterday. That Unfettered One-drained me. Some food would be very nice.”

  The opportunity to do something for Covenant gave Mhoram a feeling of relief. Moving promptly, he brought his guest a flask of springwine. Covenant drank as if he were trying to break an inner drought, and Mhoram went to his back rooms to find some food.

  While he was placing bread and cheese and grapes on a tray, he heard a sharp, distant shout; a voice cried his name with an urgency that smote his heart. He set the tray down, hastened to throw open the door of his chambers.

  In the sudden wash of light from the courtyard, he saw a warrior standing in one of the coigns high abov
e him. The warrior was a young man-too young for war meat, Mhoram thought grimly-who had lost command of himself. “Lord Mhoram!” he blurted. “Come! Now! The Close!”

  “Stop.” The authority in Mhoram's tone caught the young man like a bit. He winced, stiffened, forced down a chaotic tumult of words. Then he recovered his self-possession. Seeing this, the Lord said more gently, “I hear you. Speak.”

  “The High Lord asks that you come to the Close at once. A messenger has come from the Plains of Ra. The Grey Slayer is marching.”

  “War?” Mhoram spoke softly to conceal a sharp prevision of blood.

  “Yes, Lord Mhoram.”

  “Please say to the High Lord that that I have heard you.”

  Bearing himself carefully, Mhoram turned back toward Covenant. The Unbeliever met his gaze with a hot, oddly focused look, as if his skull were splitting between his eyes. Mhoram asked simply, “Will you come?”

  Covenant gripped the Lord's gaze, and said, “Tell me something, Mhoram. How did you get away when that Raver caught you-near Foul's Creche?”

  Mhoram answered with a conscious serenity, a refusal of dismay, which looked like danger in his gold-flecked eyes. “The Bloodguard with me were slain. But when samadhi Raver touched me, he knew me as I knew him. He was daunted.”

  For a moment, Covenant did not move. Then he dropped his glance. Wearily, he set the stoneware flask on the table, pushed it over so that it clicked against the krill. He tugged momentarily at his beard, then pulled himself to his feet. To Mhoram's gaze, he looked like a thin candle clogged with spilth — guttering, frail, and portionless.

  “Yes,” he said. “Elena asked me the same thing. For all the good it'll do any of us. I'm coming.”

  Awkwardly, he shambled out onto the burning floor.

  PART II The Warmark

  Eleven: War Council

  HILE TROY was sure of one thing; despite whatever Covenant said, the Land was no dream. He perceived this with an acuteness which made his heart ache.

  In the “real” world, he had not been simply blind, he had been eyeless from birth. He lacked even the organs of sight which could have given him a conception of what vision was. Until the mysterious event which had snatched him from between opposing deaths, and had dropped him on the sunlit grass of Trothgard, light and dark had been equally incomprehensible to him. He had not known that he lived in immitigable midnight. The tools with which he had handled his physical surroundings had been hearing and touch and language. His sense of ambience, his sensitivity to the auras of objects and the resonances of space, was translated by words until it became his sole measure of the concrete world. He had been a good strategist precisely because his perceptions of space and interacting force were pure, undistracted by any knowledge of day or night or colour or brilliance or illusion.

  Therefore he could not be imagining the Land. His former mind had not contained the raw materials out of which such dreams were made. When he appeared in the Land-when Lord Elena taught him that the rush of sensations which confused him was sight the experience was altogether new. It did not restore to him something that he had lost. It opened in front of him like an oracle.

  He knew that the Land was real.

  And he knew that its future hung by the thread of his strategy in this war. If he made a mistake, then more brightness and colour than he could ever take into account were doomed.

  So when Ruel, the Bloodguard assigned to watch over him, came to him in his quarters and informed him that a Ramen Manethrall had arrived from the Plains of Ra, bringing word of Lord Foul's army, Troy felt an instant of panic. It had begun-the test of all his training, planning, hopes. If he had believed Mhoram's tales of a Creator, he would have dropped to his knees to pray.

  But he had never learned to rely on anyone but himself. The Wayward and the strategy were his; he was in command. He paused just long enough to strap the traditional ebony sword of the Warmark to his waist and don his headband. Then he followed Ruel toward the Close.

  As he moved, he was grateful for the brightness of the torches in the hallways. Even with their help, his sight was dim. In daylight, he could see clearly, with more grasp of detail and more distance than the far-eyed Giants. The sun brought distant things close to him; at times, he felt that he possessed more of the Land than anyone else. But night restored his blindness like an insistent reminder of where he had come from. While the sun was down, he was lost without torches or fires. Starlight did not touch his private darkness, and even a full moon cast no more than a grey smudge across his mind.

  Sometimes in the middle of the night, his sightlessness scared him like a repudiation of sunlight and vision.

  By force of habit, he adjusted his sunglasses. He had worn them for so long, out of consideration for the people with eyes who had to look at him, that they felt like a part of his face. But he never saw them; they had no effect on his vision. Nothing that came within six inches of his orbless sockets blocked his mental sight at all.

  To control his tension, he strode toward the Close without hurrying. At one point, a group of Hafts, the commanders of Eoward, saluted him and then jogged ahead with their swords clattering; and later Lord Verement came hawklike down a broad staircase and rushed past him. But he did not vary his step until he reached the high doors of the council chamber. There he found Quaan waiting for him.

  The sight of the old stalwart Hiltmark gave him a pang. In this dim light, Quaan's thin white hair made him look frail. But he saluted Troy briskly, and reported that all fifty Hafts were now in the Close.

  Fifty. Troy recited the numbers to himself as if he were repeating a rite of command: Fifty Eoward, one thousand Eoman; a total of twenty-one thousand fifty warriors; First Haft Amorine, Hiltmark Quaan, and himself. He nodded as if to assure Quaan that they would be enough. Then he marched down into the Close to take his seat at the Lords' table.

  Around him, the chamber was almost filled, and most of the leaders were in their chairs. The space was so well-lit that now he could see clearly. The High Lord sat with quiet intensity at the head of the table; and between her and him were Callindrill, Trevor, Loerya, and Amatin, each keeping a private silence. But Troy knew them, and could guess something of their thoughts. Lord Loerya hoped despite the demands of her Lordship that she and Trevor would not be chosen to leave Revelstone and her daughters. And her husband seemed to be remembering that he had fallen under the strain of fighting the ill in dukkha Waynhim-remembering, and wondering if he had the strength for this war.

  About Elena, Troy did not speculate. Her beauty confused him; he did not want to think that something might happen to her in this war. Deliberately, he kept his gaze away from her.

  On her left beyond Mhoram's empty chair was Lord Verement and two more unoccupied seats places for the Lords Shetra and Hyrim. For a moment, Troy paused to wonder how Korik's mission was doing. Four days after their departure, word had been brought to Revelstone by some of the scouts that they had passed into Grimmerdhore Forest. But after that, of course, Troy knew he could not expect to hear any more news until long days after the mission was over, for good or ill. In the privacy of his heart, he dreamed that sometime during the course of this war he would have the joy of seeing Giants march to his aid, led by Hyrim and Shetra. He missed them all, Shetra as much as Korik, Hyrim as much as the Giants. He feared that he would need them.

  Above and behind the High Lord, the Hearthralls Tohrm and Borillar sat in their places with Hiltmark Quaan and First Mark Morin. And behind the Lords, spaced around the first rows of seats in the gallery, were other Bloodguard: Morril, Bann, Howor, Koral, and Ruel on Troy's side; Terrel, Thomin, and Bannor opposite him.

  Most of the remaining people in the Close were his Hafts. As a group they were restless, tense. Most of them had no experience of war, and they had been training rigorously under his demanding gaze. He found himself hoping that what they saw and heard at this Council would galvanize their courage, turn their tightness into fortitude. They had such
an ordeal ahead of them.

  The few Lorewardens visiting Revelstone were all present, as were the most skilled of the Keep's rhadhamaerl and lillianrill. But Troy noticed that the Gravelingas Trell was not among them. He felt vaguely relieved-more for Trell's sake than for Covenant's.

  Shortly, Lord Mhoram entered the Close, bringing the Unbeliever with him. Covenant was tired-his hunger and weakness were plainly visible in the gaunt pallor of his face-but Troy could see that he had suffered no real harm. And his reliance upon Mhoram's support expressed how little he was a threat to the Lords at this moment. Troy frowned behind his sunglasses, tried not to let his indignation at Covenant surge back up again. As Mhoram seated Covenant, and then walked around to take his own place at Elena's left, Troy turned his attention to the High Lord.

  She was ready to begin now; and as always her every movement, her every inflection, fascinated him.

  Slowly, she looked around the table, meeting the eyes of each of the Lords. Then in a clear, stately voice, she said, "My friends, Lords and Lorewardens and servers of the Land, our time has come. For good or ill, weal or woe, the trial is upon us. The word of war is here. In our hands now is the fate of the Land, to keep or to lose, as our strength permits. The time of preparation is ended. No longer do we build or plan against the future. Now we go to war. If our might is not potent to preserve the Land, then we fall, and whatever world is to come will be of the Despiser's making, not ours.

  “Hear me, my friends. I do not speak to darken your hearts, but to warn against false hope and wishful dreams, which could unbind the thews of purpose. We are the chance of the Land. We have striven for worth. Now our worthiness meets its test. Harken, and make no mistake. This is the test which determines.” For a moment, she paused to gaze over-all the attentive faces in the Close. When she had seen the resolution in their eyes, she gave a smile of approval, and said quietly, “I am not afraid.”