The Illearth War

by Stephen Donaldson

  The Lord and the Bloodguard watched him in silence, waited for him. At last his grief eased, and his tears ceased. When he brought his head forward from the wall, he murmured as if in defeat, "He has left me to the last."

  With a visible effort, Lord Hyrim forced himself to ask, "Who is he?"

  The Giant answered in misery, "He came soon-he came soon after we had learned the fate of the three brothers-the brothers of one birth-Damelon Rockbrother's omen of the end. This spring-ah, was it so recent? It needs more time. There should be years given to it. There-ah, my people! This spring-this-we knew at last that the old slumbering ill of the Sarangrave was awake. We thought to send word to brave Lord's Keep -- " For a moment, he choked on the grief in his throat. "Then we lost the brothers. Lost them. We arose to one sunrise, and they were gone.

  "We did not send to the Lords. How could we bear to tell them that our hope was lost? No. Rather, we searched. From the Northron Climbs to the Spoiled Plains and beyond, we searched. We searched through all the summer. Nothing. In despair, the searchers returned to The Grieve, Coercri, last home of the Unhomed.

  "Then the last searcher returned-Wavenhair Haleall, whose womb bore the three. Because she was their mother, she searched when all others had given up the search, and she was the last to return. She had journeyed to the Shattered Hills themselves. She called all the people together, and told us the fate of the three before she died. The wounds of the search -- "

  He groaned again. "Now I am the last. Ah, my people!" As he cried out, he moved, shoved himself to his feet, stood erect against the wall. Towering over his hearers, he put back his head and began to sing the old song of the Unhomed.

  Now we are Unhomed, bereft of root and kith and kin.

  From other mysteries of delight, we set our sails to resail our track; but the winds of life blew not the way we chose, and the land beyond the Sea was lost.

  It was long, like all Giantish songs. But he sang only a fragment of it. Soon he fell silent, and his chin dropped to his breast.

  Again Lord Hyrim asked, "Who is he?"

  The Giant answered by resuming his tale. "Then he came. Omen of the end and Home turned to misery and gall. Then we knew the truth. We had seen it before-in lighter times, when the knowledge might have been of some use-but we had denied it. We had seen our evil, and had denied it, thinking that we might find our way Home and escape it. Fools! When we saw him, we knew the truth. Through folly and withering seed and passion and impatience for Home, we had become the thing we hate. We saw the truth in him. Our hearts were turned to ashes, and we went to our dwellings-these small rooms which we called homes in vain."

  "Why did you not flee?"

  "Some did-some four or five who did not know the long name of despair-or did not hear it. Or they were too much like him to judge. The ill of the Sarangrave took them-they-are no more."

  Compelled by the ancient passion of the Bloodguard, Korik asked, "Why did you not fight?"

  "We had become the thing we hate. We are better dead."

  "Nevertheless!" Korik said. "Is this the fealty of the Giants? Does all promised faithfulness come to this? By the Vow, Giant! You destroy yourselves, and let the evil live! Even Kevin Landwaster was not so weak."

  In his emotion, he forgot caution, and all the Bloodguard were taken unaware. The sudden voice behind them was cold with contempt; it cut through

  them like a gale of winter. Turning, they found that another Giant stood in the doorway. He was much younger than the Giant within, but he resembled the older Giant. The chief difference lay in the contempt that filled his face, raged in his eyes, twisted his mouth as if he were about to spit.

  In his right hand, he clenched a hot green stone. It blazed with an emerald strength that shone through his fingers. As he gripped it, it steamed thickly.

  He stank of fresh blood; he was spattered with it from head to foot. And within him, clinging to his bones, was a powerful presence that did not fit his form. It slavered from behind his eyes with a great force of malice and wrong.

  "Hmm," he said in a despising tone, "a Lord and three Bloodguard. I am pleased. I had thought that my friend in the Sarangrave would take all like you but I see I shall have that pleasure myself. Ah, but you are not entirely scatheless, are you? Black becomes you. Did you lose friends to my friend?" He laughed with a grating sound, like the noise of boulders being crushed together.

  Lord Hyrim stepped forward, planted his staff, said bravely, "Come no closer, turiya Raver. I am Hyrim, Lord of the Council of Revelstone. Melenkurion abatha! Duroc minas mill khabaal! I will not let you pass."

  The Giant winced as Lord Hyrim uttered the Words of power. But then he laughed again. "Hah! Little Lord! Is that the limit of your lore? Can you come no closer than that to the Seven Words? You pronounce them badly. But I must admit-you have recognized me. I am turiya Herem. But we have -new names now, my brothers and I. There is Fleshharrower, and Satansfist. And I am named Kinslaughterer."

  At this, the older Giant groaned heavily. The Raver glanced into the back of the cell, and said in a tone of satisfaction, "Ah, there he is. Little Lord, I see that you have been speaking with Sparlimb Keelsetter. Did he tell you that he is my father? Father, why do you not welcome your son?"

  The Bloodguard did not look at the older Giant. But they heard Keelsetter's pain, and understood it. Something within the Giant was breaking. Suddenly, he gave a savage roar. Leaping past the four, he attacked Kinslaughterer.

  His fingers caught the Raver's throat. He drove him back out of the doorway onto the headrock of the piers.

  Kinslaughterer made no attempt to break his father's hold. He resisted the impetus until his feet were braced. Then he raised the green stone, moved it toward Keelsetter's forehead.

  Both fist and stone passed through the older Giant's skull into his brain.

  Keelsetter screamed. His hands dropped, his body went limp. He hung from the point of power which impaled his head.

  Grinning ravenously, the Raver held his father there for a long moment. Then he tightened his fist. Deep emerald flashed; the stone blasted the front of Keelsetter's skull. He fell dead, pouring blood over the headrock.

  Kinslaughterer stamped his feet in the spreading pool.

  He appeared oblivious to the four, but he was not. As Korik and Tull started forward to attack him, he swung his arm, hurled a bolt of power at them. It would have slain them before they reached the doorway, but Lord Hyrim lunged, thrust up his staff between them. The end of his staff caught the bolt. It detonated with such force that it broke the staff in two, and flung the four humans against the back of the cell.

  The impact made them unconscious.

  Thus even the Vow could not preserve the Bloodguard from the extremity of their need.

  Korik was the first to reawaken. Hearing returned before sight or touch, and he began to listen. In his ears, the noise of the Sea grew, became violent. But the sound was not the sound of waves in storm; it was more erratic, more vicious. When his sight was

  restored, he was surprised to find that he could see. He had expected the darkness of clouds.

  But early starlight shone through the doorway from a clear night sky. Outside, the Sea thrashed and heaved across the piers and up the levee as if goaded by rowels. And along the sky lightning leaped, followed by such thunder that he felt the bursting in his chest. Through the spray a high wind howled. And still the sky was clear.

  There was a bayamo upon the Sea.

  Then a different lightning struck upward into the heavens-a bolt as green as blazing emerald. It came from the levee. Looking through the darkness, Korik discerned the form of the Raver, Kinslaughterer. He stood down in the levee, so close to the tide that the waves broke against his knees. With his stone, he hurled green blasts into the sky, and shook his arms as if the windstorm were his to command.

  On the levee behind him were three dead forms the three Bloodguard whom Korik had sent to the northern end of the city.

  For a time
, Korik did not comprehend what Kinslaughterer was doing. But then he perceived that the seas out beyond the piers moved in consonance with Kinslaughterer's arms. As the Giant-Raver waved and gestured, they heaved and reared and broke and piled themselves together.

  Farther away, the situation was worse. Slowly, with great pitchings and shudders, a massive wall of water rose out of the ocean. Kinslaughterer's green lightning glared across the face of it as it mounted, tossed its crest higher and higher. And as it grew, it moved toward the cliff.

  The Raver was summoning a tsunami.

  Korik turned to rouse his companions.

  Sill and Tull were soon conscious and alert. But Lord Hyrim lay still, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Swiftly, Sill ran his hands over the Lord's body, reported that Hyrim had several broken ribs, but no other injuries. Together, Korik and Sill chafed his wrists, slapped his neck. At last, his eyelids fluttered, and he awakened.

  He was dazed. At first, he could not grasp Korik's tidings. But when he looked out into the night, he understood. Already, the mounting tidal wave appeared half as high as the cliff, and its writhing had a dark, ill cast. There was enough hatred concentrated in it to shatter The Grieve. When Lord Hyrim turned from it, his face-was taut with terrible purpose.

  He had to shout to make himself heard over the roar of waves and wind and thunder. "We must stop him! He violates the Sea! If he succeeds-if he bends the Sea to his will-the Law that preserves it will be broken. It will serve the Despiser like another Raver!"

  Korik answered, "Yes!" There was a fury in the Bloodguard. They would have disobeyed any other decision.

  Yet Sill remembered caution enough to say, "He has the Illearth Stone."

  "No!" Lord Hyrim searched the floor for the pieces of his staff. When he found them, he called for clingor. Tull gave him a length of line. He used it to lash the two pieces of his staff together, metal heels joined. Clutching this unwieldly instrument, he said, "That is only a fragment of the Stone! The Illearth Stone itself -is much larger! But in our worst dreams we did not guess that the Despiser would dare cut pieces of the Stone for his servants. His mastery of it must-must be very great. Thus he is able to subdue Giants-the Ravers and the Stone together, the Stone empowering the Raver, and the Raver using the stone! And the others-Fleshharrower, Satansfist-they also must possess fragments of the Stone. Do you hear, Korik?"

  "I hear," Korik replied. "The High Lord will be warned."

  Lord Hyrim nodded. The pain in his ribs made him wince. But he thrust his way out of the cell into the howling wind. Korik, Sill, and Tull followed at once.

  Ahead of them, Kinslaughterer labored in an ecstasy of power. Though it was still some distance from the piers, the tsunami towered over him, dwarfed

  his stolen form. Now he was chanting to it, invoking it. His words cut through the tumult of the storm.

  Come, Seal

  Obey me!

  Raise high!

  crash down!

  Break rock!

  break stone:

  crush heart:

  grind soul:

  rend flesh:

  crack whole!

  Eat dead

  for bread!

  Come, Sea!

  Obey me!

  And the seas answered, piled still higher. Now the wave's crest frothed and lashed level with the upper ramparts of Coercri.

  The Bloodguard wished to attack instantly, but Lord Hyrim held them back. So that he would not be heard by Kinslaughterer, he mouthed the words, "I must strike the first blow." Then he moved over the headrock as fast as his damaged chest permitted.

  When the four started into the levee, the huge wall of water already appeared to be leaning over them. Only the might of Kinslaughterer's Stone kept it erect. As they approached, he was too consumed by the spectacle of his own power to sense them. But in the last moment, some instinct warned him. He spun suddenly, found Lord Hyrim within a few yards of him.

  Roaring savagely, he raised his glowing fist to hurl a blast at the Lord.

  But while the Raver cocked his arm, Lord Hyrim leaped the last distance toward him. With the lashed fragments of his staff, the Lord struck upward.

  The metal heels hit Kinslaughterer's hand before his bolt was ready.

  The two powers clashed in a blaze of green and

  blue. Kinslaughterer's greater force drove his might like lightning down the length of Lord Hyrim's arms into his head and body. The green fire burned within him, burned his brain and heart. When the flame ceased, he collapsed.

  But the clash scorched Kinslaughterer's hand, and its recoil knocked his arm back. He lost the Stone. It fell, rolled away from him across the headrock.

  At once, the three Bloodguard sprang; together they struck the Raver with all their strength. And in that assault their Vow at last found utterance. The GiantRaver was dead before his form fell into the water.

  Yet still for a long moment the Bloodguard hurled blows at him, driven by the excess of their rage and abomination. Then the splashing of saltwater cooled them, and they perceived that the storm had begun to fade.

  Without the compulsion of the Stone, the wind failed. The lightning stopped. After a few last rolls, the thunder fell away.

  The tidal wave made a sound like an avalanche as it fell backward into the Sea. Its spray wet the faces of the Bloodguard, and its waves broke over their thighs. Then it was gone.

  Together, the three hastened back to Lord Hyrim.

  He still clung to life, but he was almost at an end; the Raver's blast had burned him deeply. His eye sockets were empty, and from between his hollow lids a thin green smoke rose up into the starlight. As Sill lifted him into a sitting position, his hands groped about him as if they were searching for his staff, and he said weakly, "Do not-do not touchtake -- "

  He could not speak it. The effort burst his heart. With a groan, he died in Sill's arms.

  For a time, the Bloodguard stood over him in silence, gave him what respect they could. But they had no words to say. Soon Korik went and took up Kinslaughterer's fragment of the Illearth Stone. Without a will to drive it, it was dull; it showed only fitful gleams in its core. But it hurt his hand with a deep and fiery cold. He clenched it in his fist.

  "We will take it to the High Lord," he said. "Per

  haps the other Ravers have such power. The High Lord may use this power to defeat them."

  Sill and Tull nodded. In the ruin of the mission, there was no other hope left to them.

  "Then we sent homeward the bodies of our fallen comrades," Tull said softly. "There was no need for haste-we knew that their Ranyhyn could find a way in safety north of the Sarangrave. And when that task was done, we returned to the five who stood watch at the lighthouse. Two of them Korik charged to return to Lord's Keep with all possible speed, so that Revelstone might be warned. And because he judged that the war had already begun-that the High Lord would be marching in the South Plains with the Warward -- I was charged, and Shull and Vale with me, to bear these tidings southward, the way I have come. With Sill and Doar, Korik undertook the burden of the Illearth Stone, so that it might be taken in safety to Revelstone for the Lords."

  At last the Bloodguard fell silent. For a long time, Troy sat gazing sightlessly at the stone before him. He felt deaf and numb-too shocked to hear the low breeze blowing around Kevin's Watch, too stunned to feel the chill of the mountain air. Dead? he asked silently. All dead? But it seemed to him that he felt nothing. In him there was a pain so deep that he was not conscious of it.

  But in time he recollected himself enough to raise his head, look over at Lord Mhoram. He could see the Lord dimly. His forehead was tight with pain, and his eyes bled tears.

  With an effort, Troy found his voice. It was husky with emotion as he asked, "Is this what you saw last night? Is this it?"

  "No." Mhoram's reply was abrupt. But it was not abrupt with anger; it was abrupt with the exertion of suppressing his sobs. "I saw Bloodguard fighting in the service of the De
spiser."

  There was a long and heartrending pause before Tull said through his teeth, "That is impossible."

  "They should not have touched the Stone," the Lord breathed weakly. "They should not -- !"

  Troy wanted to question Mhoram, ask him what he meant. But then suddenly he realized that he was seeing more clearly. His fog was lifting.

  At once, he rose to his knees, turned, braced his chest on the edge of the parapet. Instinctively, he tightened his sunglasses on his face.

  Along the rim of the eastern horizon dawn had already begun.

  EIGHTEEN: Dooms Retreat

  IMMEDIATELY, Troy jumped erect to face the sun.

  His companions stood with him in tense silence, as if they intended to share what he would see. But he knew that even the Bloodguard could not match his mental sight. He paid no attention to them. All his awareness was consumed by the gradual revelations of the dawn.

  At first, he could see only a fading gray and purple blankness. But then the direct rays of the sun caught the platform, and his surroundings began to lift their heads out of the mist. Above the long fall into shadow, he received his first visual sense of the wide open air in which Kevin's Watch stood as if on the tip of a dark finger accusing the heavens. In the west, across a distance too great for any sight but his, he saw sunlight touch the thin snowcaps of the mountain wedge which separated the South Plains from Garroting Deep. And as the sun climbed higher, he made out the long curve of peaks running south and then west from the valley of Mithil Stonedown to Doom's Retreat.

  Then the light reached down to the hills which formed the eastern border of the Plains between Kevin's Watch and Andelain. Now he could follow the whole course of the Mithil River northwest and then north until it joined the Black. He felt strangely elevated and mighty. His gaze had never comprehended so much before, and he understood how High Lord Kevin must have felt. Standing on the Watch was like being on the pinnacle of the Earth.

  But the sun kept rising. Like a tide of illumination, it flooded across the Plains, washing away the last of his blindness.