The Power That Preserves t1cotc-3

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  But Mhoram had said that the Bloodguard were lost.

  “Ur-Lord Covenant.” Banner inclined his head in a slight bow. “Pardon my error. You are well disguised.”

  “Disguised?” Covenant had no conception of what Banner was talking about. Mhoram’s pain had carried so much conviction. Numbly, he glanced downward as if he expected to find two fingers missing from Banner’s right hand.

  “A Stonedownor jacket. Sandals. A Giant for a companion.” Banner’s impassive eyes held Covenant’s face. “And you stink of infection. Only your countenance may be recognized.”

  “Recognized.” Covenant could not stop himself. He repeated the word because it was the last thing Banner had said. Fighting for self-control, he croaked, “Why aren’t you with the Lords?”

  “The Vow was Corrupted. We no longer serve the Lords.”

  Covenant gaped at this answer as if it were nonsense. Confusion befogged his comprehension. Had Mhoram said anything like this? He found that his knees were trembling as if the ground under him had shifted. No longer serve the Lords, he repeated blankly. He did not know what the words meant.

  But then the sounds of Lena’s struggle penetrated him. “You have harmed him,” she gasped fiercely. “Release me!”

  He made an effort to pull himself together. “Let her go,” he said to Banner. “Don’t you understand who she is?”

  “Did the Giant speak truly?”

  “What? Did he what?” Covenant almost lapsed back into his stupor at the jolt of this distrust. But for Lena’s sake he took a deep breath, resisted. “She is the mother of High Lord Elena,” he grated. “Tell them to let her go.”

  Banner glanced past Covenant at Lena, then said distantly, “The Lords spoke of her. They were unable to heal her.” He shrugged slightly. “They were unable to heal many things.”

  Before Covenant could respond, the Bloodguard signalled to his companions. A moment later, Lena was at Covenant’s side. From somewhere in her robes, she produced a stone knife and brandished it between Bannor and Covenant. “If you have harmed him, “she fumed, “I will take the price of it from your skin, old man.”

  The Bloodguard cocked an eyebrow at her. Covenant reached for her arm to hold her back, but he was still too staggered to think of a way to calm her, reassure her. “Lena,” he murmured ineffectively, “Lena.” When Foamfollower joined them, Covenant’s eyes appealed to the Giant for help.

  “Ah, my Queen,” Foamfollower said softly. “Remember your Oath of Peace.”

  “Peace!” Lena snapped in a brittle voice. “Speak to them of Peace. They attacked the Unbeliever.”

  “Yet they are not our enemies. They are the Ramen.”

  She jerked incredulously to face the Giant. “Ramen? The tenders of the Ranyhyn?”

  Covenant stared as well. Ramen? He had unconsciously assumed that Banner’s companions were other Bloodguard. The Ramen had always secretly hated the Bloodguard because so many Ranyhyn had died while bearing the Bloodguard in battle. Ramen and Bloodguard? The ground seemed to lurch palpably under him. Nothing was as he believed it to be; everything in the Land would either astound or appall him, if only he were told the truth.

  “Yes,” Foamfollower replied to Lena. And now Covenant recognized the Ramen for himself. Eight of them, men and women, stood around him. They were lean, swift people, with the keen faces of hunters, and skin so deeply tanned from their years in the open air that even this winter could not pale them. Except for their scanty robes, their camouflage, they dressed in the Ramen fashion as Covenant remembered it-short shifts and tunics which left their legs and arms free; bare feet. Seven of them had the cropped hair and roped waists characteristic of Cords; and the eighth was marked as a Manethrall by the way his fighting thong tied his long black hair into one strand, and by the small, woven circlet of yellow flowers on the crown of his head.

  Yet they had changed; they were not like the Ramen he had known forty-seven years ago. The easiest alteration for him to see was in their attitude toward him. During his first visit to the Land, they had looked at him in awed respect. He was the Ringthane, the man to whom the Ranyhyn had reared a hundred strong. But now their proud, severe faces regarded him with asperity backed by ready rage, as if he had violated their honour by committing some nameless perfidy.

  But that was not the only change in them. As he scrutinized the uncompromising eyes around him, he became conscious of a more significant difference, something he could not define. Perhaps they carried themselves with less confidence or pride; perhaps they had been attacked so often that they had developed a habitual flinch; perhaps this ratio of seven Cords to one Manethrall, instead of three or four to one, as it should have been, indicated a crippling loss of life among their leaders, the teachers of the Ranyhyn-lore. Whatever the reason, they had a haunted look, an aspect of erosion, as if some subliminal ghoul were gnawing at the bones of their courage. Studying them, Covenant was suddenly convinced that they endured Bannor, even followed him, because they were no longer self-sure enough to refuse a Bloodguard.

  After a moment, he became aware that Lena was speaking, more in confusion than in anger now. “Why did you attack us? Can you not recognize the Unbeliever? Do you not remember the Rockbrothers of the Land? Can you not see that I have ridden Ranyhyn?”

  “Ridden!” spat the Manethrall.

  “My Queen,” Foamfollower said softly, “the Ramen do not ride.”

  “As for Giants,” the man went on, “they betray.”

  “Betray?” Covenant’s pulse pounded in his temples, as if he were too close to an abyss hidden in the snow.

  “Twice now Giants have led Fangthane’s rending armies north of the Plains of Ra. These ‘Rockbrothers’ have sent fangs and claws in scores of thousands to tear the flesh of Ranyhyn. Behold!” With a swift tug, he snatched his cord from his hair and grasped it taut like a garrote. “Every Ramen cord is black with blood.” His knuckles tightened as if he were about to leap at the Giant. “Manhome is abandoned. Ramen and Ranyhyn are scattered. Giants!” He spat again as if the very taste of the word disgusted him.

  “Yet you know me,” Foamfollower said to Bannor. “You know that I am not one of the three who fell to the Ravers.”

  Bannor shrugged noncommittally. “Two of the three are dead. Who can say where those Ravers have gone?”

  “I am a Giant, Bannor!” Foamfollower insisted in a tone of supplication, as if that fact were the only proof of his fidelity. “It was I who first brought Thomas Covenant to Revelstone.”

  Bannor was unmoved. “Then how is it that you are alive?”

  At this, Foamfollower’s eyes glinted painfully. In a thin tone, he said, “I was absent from Coercri- when my kindred brought their years in Seareach to an end.”

  The Bloodguard cocked an eyebrow, but did not relent. After a moment, Covenant realized that the resolution of this impasse was in his hands. He was in no condition to deal with such problems, but he knew he had to say something. With an effort, he turned to Bannor. “You can’t claim you don’t remember me. You probably have nightmares about me, even if you don’t ever sleep.”

  “I know you, ur-Lord Covenant.” As he spoke, Bannor’s nostrils flared as if they were offended by the smell of illness.

  “You know me, too,” Covenant said with mounting urgency to the Manethrall. “Your people call me Ringthane. The Ranyhyn reared to me.”

  The Manethrall looked away from Covenant’s demanding gaze, and for an instant the haunted look filled his face like an ongoing tragedy. “Of the Ringthane we do not speak,” he said quietly. “The Ranyhyn have chosen. It is not our place to question the choices of the Ranyhyn.”

  “Then back off!” Covenant did not intend to shout, but he was too full of undefined fears to contain himself. “Leave us alone! Hellfire! We’ve got enough trouble as it is.”

  His tone brought back the Manethrall’s pride. Severely, the man asked, “Why have you come?”

  “I haven’t ‘come.’ I don’t want to b
e here at all.”

  “What is your purpose?”

  In a voice full of mordant inflections, Covenant said, “I intend to pay a little visit to Foul’s Creche.”

  His words jolted the Cords, and their breath hissed through their teeth. The Manethrall’s hands twitched on his weapon.

  A flare of savage desire widened Bannor’s eyes momentarily. But his flat dispassion returned at once. He shared a clear glance with the Manethrall, then said, “Ur-Lord, you and your companions must accompany us. We will take you to a place where more Ramen may give thought to you.”

  “Are we your prisoners?” Covenant glowered.

  “Ur-Lord, no hand will be raised against you in my presence. But these matters must be given consideration.”

  Covenant glared hard into Bannor’s expressionlessness, then turned to Foamfollower. “What do you think?”

  “I do not like this treatment,” Lena interjected. ”Saltheart Foamfollower is a true friend of the Land. Atiaran my mother spoke of all Giants with gladness. And you are the Unbeliever, the bearer of white gold. They show disrespect. Let us leave them and go our way.”

  Foamfollower replied to them both, “The Ramen are not blind. Bannor is not blind. They will see me more clearly in time. And their help is worth seeking.”

  “All right,” Covenant muttered. “I’m no good at fighting anyway.” To Bannor, he said stiffly, “We’ll go with you.” Then, for the sake of everything that had happened between himself and the Bloodguard, he added, “No matter what else is going on here, you’ve saved my life too often for me to start distrusting you now.”

  Bannor gave Covenant another fractional bow. At once, the Manethrall snapped a few orders to the Cords. Two of them left at a flat run toward the northeast, and two more moved off to take scouting positions on either side of the company, while the rest gathered small knapsacks from hiding places around the hollow. Watching them, Covenant was amazed once again at how easily, swiftly, they could disappear into their surroundings. Even their footprints seemed to vanish before his eyes. By the time Foamfollower had packed his leather sack, they had effaced all signs of their presence from the hollow. It looked as untroubled as if they had never been there.

  Before long, Covenant found himself trudging between Lena and Foamfollower in the same general direction taken by the two runners. The Manethrall and Bannor strode briskly ahead of them, and the three remaining Cords marched at their backs like guards. They seemed to be moving openly, as if they had no fear of enemies. But twice when he looked back Covenant saw the Cords erasing the traces of their passage from the grey drifts and the cold ground.

  The presence of those three ready garrotes behind him only aggravated his confusion. Despite his long experience with hostility, he was not prepared for such distrust from the Ramen. Clearly, important events had taken place-events of which he had no conception. His ignorance afflicted him with a powerful sense that the fate of the Land was moving toward a crisis, a fundamental concatenation in which his own role was beclouded, obscure. The facts were being kept from him. This feeling cast the whole harsh edifice of his purpose into doubt, as if it were erected on slow quicksand. He needed to ask questions, to get answers. But the unspoken threat of those Ramen ropes disconcerted him. And Bannor-! He could not frame his questions, even to himself.

  And he was tired. He had already travelled all night, had not slept since the previous afternoon. Only four days had passed since his summoning. As he laboured to keep up the pace, he found that he lacked the strength of concentration to think.

  Lena was in no better condition. Although she was healthier than he, she was old, and not hardened to walking. Gradually, he became as worried about her as he was weary himself. When she began to droop against him, he told Banner flatly that he would have to rest.

  They slept until midafternoon, then travelled late into the night before camping again. And the next morning, they were on their way before dawn. But Covenant and Lena did better now. The food which the Ramen gave them was hot and nourishing. And soon after grey dim day had shambled into the laden air, they reached the edge of the hills, came in sight of the Plains of Ra. At this point, they swung northward, staying in the rumbled terrain of the hills-edge rather than venturing into the bleak, winter-bitten openness of the Plains. But still they found the going easier. In time, Covenant recovered enough to begin asking questions.

  As usual, he had trouble talking to Banner. The Bloodguard’s unbreachable dispassion daunted him, often made him malicious or angry through simple frustration; such reticence seemed outrageously immune from judgment-the antithesis of leprosy. Now all the Bloodguard had abandoned the Lords, Revelstone, death refusal. Lord’s Keep would fall without them. And yet Bannor was here, living and working with the Ramen. When Covenant tried to ask questions, he felt that he no longer knew the man to whom he spoke.

  Bannor met his first tentative inquiries by introducing Covenant to the Ramen — Manethrall Kam, and his Cords, Whane, Lal, and Puhl — and by assuring him that they would reach their destination by evening the next day. He explained that this band of Ramen was a scouting patrol responsible for detecting marauders along the western marge of Ra; they had found Covenant and his companions by chance rather than design. When Covenant asked about Rue, the Manethrall who had brought word of Fleshharrower’s army to Revelstone seven years ago, Bannor replied flatly that she had died soon after her return home. But after that, Covenant had to wrestle for what he wanted to know.

  At last he could find no graceful way to frame his question. “You left the Lords,” he rasped awkwardly. “Why are you here?”

  “The Vow was broken. How could we remain?”

  “They need you. They couldn’t need you more.”

  “Ur-Lord, I say to you that the Vow was broken. Many things were broken. You were present. We could not-ur-Lord, I am old now. I, Bannor, First Mark of the Bloodguard. I require sleep and hot food. Though I was bred for mountains, this cold penetrates my bones. I am no fit server for Revelstone-no, nor for the Lords, though they do not equal High Lord Kevin who went before them.”

  “Then why are you here? Why didn’t you just go home and forget it?”

  Foamfollower winced at Covenant’s tone, but Bannor replied evenly, “That was my purpose-when I departed Lord’s Keep. But I found I could not forget. I had ridden too many Ranyhyn. At night I saw them-in my dreams they ran like clear skies and cleanliness. Have you not beheld them? Without Vows or defiance of death, they surpassed the faith of the Bloodguard. Therefore I returned.”

  “Just because you were addicted to Ranyhyn? You let the Lords and Revelstone and all go to hell and blood, but you came here because you couldn’t give up riding Ranyhyn?”

  “I do not ride.”

  Covenant stared at him.

  “I have come to share the work of the Ramen. A few of the Haruchai- I know not how many-a few felt as I did. We had known Kevin in the youth of his glory, and could not forget. Terrel is here, and Runnik. There are others. We teach our skills to the Ramen, and learn from them the tending of the great horses. Perhaps we will learn to make peace with our failure before we die.”

  Make peace, Covenant groaned. Bannor! The very simplicity of the Bloodguard’s explanation dismayed him. So all those centuries of untainted and sleepless service came to this.

  He asked Bannor no more questions; he was afraid of the answers.

  For the rest of that day, he fell out of touch with his purpose. Despite the concern and companionship of Foamfollower and Lena, he walked between them in morose separateness. Banner’s words had numbed his heart. And he slept that night on his back with his eyes upward, as if he did not believe that he would ever see the sun again.

  But the next morning he remembered. Shortly after dawn, Manethrall Kam’s party met another Cord. The man was on his way to the edge of the Plains, and in his hands he carried two small bouquets of yellow flowers. The grey wind made their frail petals flutter pathetically. After saluting M
anethrall Kam, he strode out into the open, shouted shrilly against the wind in a language Covenant could not understand. He repeated his shout, then waited with his hands extended as if he were offering flowers to the wind.

  Shortly, out of the shelter of a frozen gully came two Ranyhyn, a stallion and a mare. The stallion’s chest was scored with fresh claw-marks, and the mare had a broken, hollow look, as if she had just lost her foal. Both were as gaunt as skeletons; hunger had carved the pride from their shoulders and haunches, exposed their ribs, given their emaciated muscles an abject starkness. They hardly seemed able to hold up their heads. But they nickered to the Cord. With a stumbling gait, they trotted forward, and began at once to eat the flowers he offered to them. In three bites the food was gone. He hugged them quickly, then turned away with tears in his eyes.

  Without a word, Manethrall Kam gave the Cord the bedraggled circlet from his hair, so that each of the Ranyhyn could have one more bite. “That is amanibhavam, the healing grass of Ra,” he explained stiffly to Covenant. “It is a hardy grass, not so easily daunted by this winter as the Render might wish. It will keep life in them-for another day.” As he spoke, he glared redly into Covenant’s face, as if the misery of these two horses were the Unbeliever’s doing. With a brusque nod toward the Cord feeding the Ranyhyn, he went on: “He walked ten leagues today to bring even this much food to them.” The haunted erosion filled his face; he looked like the victim of a curse. Painfully, he turned and strode away again northward, along the edges of the Plains.

  Covenant remembered; he had no trouble remembering his purpose now. When he followed the Manethrall, he walked as if he were fighting the deadness of his feet with outrage.

  In the course of that day, he saw a few more Ranyhyn. Two were uninjured, but all were gaunt, weak, humbled. All had gone a long way down the road toward starvation.

  The sight of them wore heavily upon Lena. There was no confusion in the way she perceived them, no distortion or inaccuracy. Such vision consumed her. As time passed, her eyes sank back under her brows, as if they were trying to hide in her skull, and dark circles like bruises grew around the orbs. She stared brittlely about her as if even Covenant were dim in her gaze-as if she beheld nothing but the protruding ribs and fleshless limbs of Ranyhyn.