Thomas Covenant 01: Lord Foul's Bane

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  For we will not rest—

  not turn aside,

  lost faith,

  or fail—

  until the Gray flows Blue,

  and Rill and Maerl are as new and clean

  as ancient Llurallin.

  The heaving of the river mounted steadily. Covenant stood in the bottom of the boat—bracing himself against one of the thwarts, gripping the gunwale—and watched the forced commingling of the clean and tainted waters. Then Foamfollower shouted, “One hundred leagues to the Westron Mountains—Guards Gap and the high spring of the Llurallin—and one hundred fifty southwest to the Last Hills and Garroting Deep! We are seventy from Lord’s Keep!”

  Abruptly the river’s moiling growl sprang louder, smothered the Giant’s voice. An unexpected lash of the current caught the boat and tore its prow to the right, bringing it broadside to the stream. Spray slapped Covenant as the boat heeled over; instinctively, he threw his weight onto the left gunwale.

  The next instant, he heard a snatch of Foamfollower’s plainsong, and felt power thrumming deeply along the keel. Slowly the boat righted itself, swung into the current again.

  But the near-disaster had carried them dangerously close to the northeast wall. The boat trembled with energy as Foamfollower worked it gradually back into the steadier water flowing below the main force of the Gray’s current. Then the sensation of power faded from the keel.

  “Your pardon!” the Giant shouted. “I am losing my seamanship!” His voice was raw with strain.

  Covenant’s knuckles were white from clenching the gunwales. As he bounced with the pitch of the boat, he remembered, There is only one good answer to death.

  One good answer, he thought. This isn’t it.

  Perhaps it would be better if the boat capsized, tatter if he drowned—better if he did not carry Lord Foul’s message halfhanded and beringed to Revelstone. He was not a hero. He could not satisfy such expectations.

  “Now the crossing!” Foamfollower called. “We must pass the Gray to go on north. There is no great danger—except that I am weary. And the rivers are high.”

  This time, Covenant turned and looked closely at the Giant. He saw now that Saltheart Foamfollower was suffering. His cheeks were sunken, hollowed as if something had gouged the geniality out of his face; and his cavernous eyes burned with taut, febrile volition. Weary? Covenant thought. More like exhausted. He lurched awkwardly from thwart to thwart until he reached the Giant. His eyes were no higher than Foamfollower’s waist. He tipped his head back to shout, “I’ll steer! You rest!”

  A smile flickered on the Giant’s lips. “I thank you. But no—you are not ready. I am strong enough. But please lift the diamondraught to me.”

  Covenant opened the food sack and put his hands on the leather jug. Its weight and suppleness made it unwieldy for him, and the tossing of the boat unbalanced him. He simply could not lift the jug. But after a moment he got his arms under it. With a groan of exertion, he heaved it upward.

  Foamfollower caught the neck of the jug neatly in his left hand. “Thank you, my friend,” he said with a ragged grin. Raising the jug to his mouth, he disregarded the perils of the current for a moment to drink deeply. Then he put down the jug and swung the boat toward the mouth of the Gray River.

  Another surge of power throbbed through the craft. As it hit the main force of the Gray, Foamfollower turned downstream and angled across the flow. Energy quivered in the floorboards. In a smooth maneuver, Foamfollower reached the north side of the current, pivoted upstream with the backwash along the wall, and let it sling him into the untroubled White. Once he had rounded the northward curve, the roar of the joining began to drop swiftly behind the boat.

  A moment later, the throb of power faded again. Sighing heavily, Foamfollower wiped the sweat from his face. His shoulders sagged, and his head bowed. With labored slowness, he lowered the tiller, and at last dropped into the stern of the boat. “Ah, my friend,” he groaned, “even Giants are not made to do such things.”

  Covenant moved to the center of the boat and took a seat in the bottom, leaning against one of the sides. From that position, he could not see over the gunwales, but he was not at present curious about the terrain. He had other concerns. One of them was Foamfollower’s condition. He did not know how the Giant had become so exhausted.

  He tried to approach the question indirectly by saying, “That was neatly done. How did you do it? You didn’t tell me what powers this thing.” And he frowned at the tactless sound of his voice.

  “Ask for some other story,” Foamfollower sighed wearily. “That one is nearly as long as the history of the Land. I have no heart to teach you the meaning of life here.”

  “You don’t know any short stories,” responded Covenant.

  At this, the Giant managed a wan smile. “Ah, that is true enough. Well, I will make it brief for you. But then you must promise to tell a story for me—something rare, that I will never guess for myself. I will need that, my friend.”

  Covenant agreed with a nod, and Foamfollower said, “Well. Eat, and I will talk.”

  Vaguely surprised at how hungry he was, Covenant tackled the contents of Foamfollower’s sack. He munched meat and cheese rapidly, satisfied his thirst with tangerines. And while he ate, the Giant began in a voice flat with fatigue: “The time of Damelon Giantfriend came to an end in the Land before my people had finished the making of Coercri, their home in Seareach. They carved Lord’s Keep, as men call it, out of the mountain’s heart before they labored on their own Lord-given land, and Loric was High Lord when Coercri was done. Then my forebears turned their attention outward—to the Sunbirth Sea, and to the friendship of the Land.

  “Now, both lillianrill and rhadhamaerl desired to study the lore of the Giants, and the time of High Lord Loric Vilesilencer was one of great growth for the lillianrill. To help in this growth, it was necessary for the Giants to make many sojourns to Lord’s Keep”—he broke into a quiet chant, singing for a while as if in invocation of the old grandeur of Giantish reverence—“to mighty Revelstone. This was well, for it kept Revelstone bright in their eyes.

  “But the Giants are not great lovers of walking—no more so then than now. So my forebears bethought them of the rivers which flow from the Westron Mountains to the Sea, and decided to build boats. Well, boats cannot come here from the Sea, as you may know—Landsdrop, on which stands Gravin Threndor, blocks the way. And no one, Giant or otherwise, would willingly sail the Defiles Course from Lifeswallower, the Great Swamp. So the Giants built docks on the Soulsease, upriver from Gravin Threndor and the narrows now called Treacher’s Gorge. There they kept such boats as this—there, and at Lord’s Keep at the foot of Furl Falls, so that at least two hundred leagues of the journey might be on the water which we love.

  “In this journeying, Loric and the lillianrill desired to be of aid to the Giants. Out of their power they crafted Gildenlode—a strong wood which they named lor-liarill—and from this wood they made rudders and keels for our riverboats. And it was the promise of the Old Lords that, when their omens of hope for us came to pass, then Gildenlode would help us.

  “Ah, enough,” Foamfollower sighed abruptly. “In short, it is I who impel this craft.” He lifted his hand from the tiller, and immediately the boat began to lose headway. “Or rather it is I who call out the power of the Gildenlode. There is life and power in the Earth—in stone and wood and water and earth. But life in them is somewhat hidden—somewhat slumberous. Both knowledge and strength are needed—yes, and potent vital songs—to awaken them.” He grasped the tiller again, and the boat moved forward once more.

  “So I am weary,” he breathed. “I have not rested since the night before we met.” His tone reminded Covenant of Trell’s fatigue after the Gravelingas had healed the broken pot. “For two days and two nights I have not allowed the Gildenlode to stop or slow, though my bones are weak with the expense.” To the surprise in Covenant’s face, he added, “Yes, my friend—you slept for two nights and a
day. From the west of Andelain across the Center Plains to the marge of Trothgard, more than a hundred leagues.” After a pause, he concluded, “Diamondraught does such things to humans. But you had need of rest.”

  For a moment, Covenant sat silent, staring at the floorboards as if he were looking for a place to hit them. His mouth twisted sourly when he raised his head and said, “So now I’m rested. Can I help?”

  Foamfollower did not reply immediately. Behind the buttress of his forehead, he seemed to weigh his various uncertainties before he muttered, “Stone and Sea! Of course you can. And yet the very fact of asking shows that you cannot. Some unwillingness or ignorance prevents.”

  Covenant understood. He could hear dark wings, see slaughtered Wraiths. Wild magic! he groaned. Heroism! This is insufferable. With a jerk of his head, he knocked transitions aside and asked roughly, “Do you want my ring?”

  “Want?” Foamfollower croaked, looking as if he felt he should laugh but did not have the heart for it. “Want?” His voice quavered painfully, as if he were confessing to some kind of aberration. “Do not use such a word, my friend. Wanting is natural, and may succeed or fail without wrong. Say covet, rather. To covet is to desire something which should not be given. Yes, I covet your un-Earth, wild magic, peace-ending white gold:

  There is wild magic graven in every rock,

  contained for white gold to unleash or control—

  I admit the desire. But do not tempt me. Power has a way of revenging itself upon its usurpers. I would not accept this ring if you offered it to me.”

  “But you do know how to use it?” Covenant inquired dully, half dazed by his inchoate fear of the answer.

  This time Foamfollower did laugh. His humor was emaciated, a mere wisp of its former self, but it was clean and gay. “Ah, bravely said, my friend. So covetousness collapses of its own folly. No, I do not know. If the wild magic may not be called up by the simple decision of use, then I do not understand it at all. Giants do not have such lore. We have always acted for ourselves—though we gladly use such tools as Gildenlode. Well, I am rewarded for unworthy thoughts. Your pardon, Thomas Covenant.”

  Covenant nodded mutely, as if he had been given an unexpected reprieve. He did not want to know how wild magic worked; he did not want to believe in it in any way. Simply carrying it around was dangerous. He covered it with his right hand and gazed dumbly, helplessly, at the Giant.

  After a moment, Foamfollower’s fatigue quenched his humor. His eyes dimmed, and his respiration sighed wearily between his slack lips. He sagged on the tiller as if laughing had cost him vital energy. “Now, my friend,” he breathed. “My courage is nearly spent. I need your story.”

  Story? Covenant thought. I don’t have any stories. I burned them.

  He had burned them—both his new novel and his best-seller. They had been so complacent, so abjectly blind to the perils of leprosy, which lurked secretive and unpredictable behind every physical or moral existence—and so unaware of their own sightlessness. They were carrion—like himself, like himself—fit only for flames. What story could he tell now?

  But he had to keep moving, act, survive. Surely he had known that before he had become the victim of dreams. Had he not learned it at the leprosarium, in putrefaction and vomit? Yes, yes! Survive! And yet this dream expected power of him, expected him to put an end to slaughter—Images flashed through him like splinters of vertigo, mirror shards: Joan, police car, Drool’s laval eyes. He reeled as if he were falling.

  To conceal his sudden distress, he moved away from Foamfollower, went to sit in the prow facing north. “A story,” he said thickly. In fact, he did know one story—one story in all its grim and motley disguises. He sorted quickly, vividly, until he found one which suited the other things he need to articulate. “I’ll tell you a story. A true story.”

  He gripped the gunwales, fought down his dizziness.

  “It’s a story about culture shock. Do you know what culture shock is?” Foamfollower did not reply. “Never mind. I’ll tell you about it. Culture shock is what happens when you take a man out of his own world and put him down in a place where the assumptions, the—the standards of being a person—are so different that he can’t possibly understand them. He isn’t built that way. If he’s—facile—he can pretend to be someone else until he gets back to his own world. Or he can just collapse and let himself be rebuilt—however. There’s no other way.

  “I’ll give you an example. While I was at the leprosarium, the doctors talked about a man—a leper—like me. Outcast. He was a classic case. He came from another country—where leprosy is a lot more common—he must have picked up the bacillus there as a child, and years later when he had a wife and three kids of his own and was living in another country, he suddenly lost the nerves in his toes and started to go blind.

  “Well, if he had stayed in his own country, he would have been—The disease is common—it would have been recognized early. As soon as it was recognized, he—and his wife—and his kids—and everything he owned—and his house—and his animals—and his close relatives—they would have all been declared unclean. His property and house and animals would have been burned to the ground. And he and his wife and his kids and his close relatives would have been sent away to live in the most abject poverty in a village with other people who had the same disease. He would have spent the rest of his life there—without treatment—without hope—while hideous deformity gnawed his arms and legs and face—until he and his wife and his kids and his close relatives all died of gangrene.

  “Do you think that’s cruel? Let me tell you what did happen to the man. As soon as he recognized his disease, he went to his doctor. His doctor sent him to the leprosarium—alone—without his family—where the spread of the disease was arrested. He was treated, given medicine and training—rehabilitated. Then he was sent home to live a ‘normal’ life with his wife and kids. How nice. There was only one problem. He couldn’t handle it.

  “To start with, his neighbors gave him a hard time. Oh, at first they didn’t know he was sick—they weren’t familiar with leprosy, didn’t recognize it—but the local newspaper printed a story on him, so that everyone in town knew he was the leper. They shunned him, hated him because they didn’t know what to do about him. Then he began to have trouble keeping up his self-treatments. His home country didn’t have medicine and leper’s therapy—in his bones he believed that such things were magic, that once his disease was arrested he was cured, pardoned—given a stay of something worse than execution. But, lo and behold! When he stops taking care of himself, the numbness starts to spread again. Then comes the clincher. Suddenly he finds that behind his back—while he wasn’t even looking, much less alert—he has been cut off from his family. They don’t share his trouble—far from it. They want to get rid of him, go back to living the way they were before.

  “So they pack him off to the leprosarium again. But after getting on the plane—they didn’t have planes in his home country, either—he goes into the bathroom as if he had been disinherited without anyone ever telling him why and slits his wrists.”

  He gaped wide-eyed at his own narration. He would have been willing, eager, to weep for the man if he had been able to do so without sacrificing his own defenses. But he could not weep. Instead, he swallowed thickly, and let his momentum carry him on again.

  “And I’ll tell you something else about culture shock. Every world has its own ways of committing suicide, and it is a lot easier to kill yourself using methods that you’re not accustomed to. I could never slit my wrists. I’ve read too much about it—talked about it too much. It’s too vivid. I would throw up. But I could go to that man’s world and sip belladonna tea without nausea. Because I don’t know enough about it. There’s something vague about it, something obscure—something not quite fatal.

  “So that poor man in the bathroom sat there for over an hour, just letting his lifeblood run into the sink. He didn’t try to get help until all of a sudden, finally, he rea
lized that he was going to die just as dead as if he had sipped belladonna tea. Then he tried to open the door—but he was too weak. And he didn’t know how to push the button to get help. They eventually found him in this grotesque position on the floor with his fingers broken, as if he—as if he had tried to crawl under the door. He—”

  He could not go on. Grief choked him into silence, and he sat still for a time, while water lamented dimly past the prow. He felt sick, desperate for survival; he could not submit to these seductions. Then Foamfollower’s voice reached him. Softly the Giant said, “Is this why you abandoned the telling of stories?”

  Covenant sprang up, whirled in instant rage. “This Land of yours is trying to kill me!” he spat fiercely. “It—you’re pressuring me into suicide! White gold!—Berek!—Wraiths! You’re doing things to me that I can’t handle. I’m not that kind of person—I don’t live in that kind of world. All these—seductions! Hell and blood! I’m a leper! Don’t you understand that?”

  For a long moment, Foamfollower met Covenant’s hot gaze, and the sympathy in the Giant’s eyes stopped his outburst. He stood glaring with his fingers clawed while Foamfollower regarded him sadly, wearily. He could see that the Giant did not understand; leprosy was a word that seemed to have no meaning in the Land. “Come on,” he said with an ache. “Laugh about it. Joy is in the ears that hear.”

  But then Foamfollower showed that he did understand something. He reached into his jerkin and drew oat a leather packet, which he unfolded to produce a large sheet of supple hide. “Here,” he said, “you will see much of this before you are done with the Land. It is clingor. The Giants brought it to the Land long ages ago—but I will spare us both the effort of telling.” He tore a small square from the comer of the sheet and handed the piece to Covenant. It was sticky on both sides, but transferred easily from hand to hand, and left no residue of glue behind. “Trust it. Place your ring upon that piece and hide it under your raiment. No one will know that you bear a talisman of wild magic.”