Thomas Covenant 03: Power That Preserves

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Quirrel nodded, approving his caution though she clearly believed that no pursuit could have followed them through the blizzard. Without delay, she collected her cloak and weapons and moved away down the cave until she was out of sight beyond the first bend.

  The Unfettered One watched her go with a question in his face.

  “She will stand guard while we talk,” Triock answered.

  “Do we require guarding? There are no ill creatures in these mountains—in this winter. The animals do not intrude.”

  “Foes pursue me,” said Triock. “I bear my own ill—and the Land’s need.” But there he faltered and fell silent. For the first time, he realized the immensity of his situation. He was face to face with an Unfettered One and Wraiths. In this cave, accompanied by dancing flames, the One studied secret lores which might have amazed even the Lords. Awe crowded forward in Triock; his own audacity daunted him. “Unfettered One,” he mumbled, “lore-servant—I do not intrude willingly. You are beyond me. Only the greatness of the need drives—”

  “I have saved your life,” the One said brusquely. “I know nothing of other needs.”

  “Then I must tell you.” Triock gathered himself and began, “The Gray Slayer is abroad in the Land—”

  The tall man forestalled him. “I know my work. I was given the Rites of Unfettering when Tamarantha was Staff-Elder of the Loresraat, and know nothing else. Except for the intrusion of the Wraiths—except—which I could not refuse—I have devoted my meager flesh here, so that I might work my work and see what no eyes have seen before. I know nothing else—no, not even how the Wraiths came to be driven from Andelain, though they speak of ur-viles and—Such talk intrudes.”

  Triock was amazed. He had not known that Tamarantha Variol-mate had ever been Staff-Elder of the Loresraat, but such a time must have been decades before Prothall became High Lord at Revelstone. This Unfettered One must have been out of touch with all the Land for the past four-or five-score years. Thickly, awefully, Triock said, “Unfettered One, what is your work?”

  A grimace of distaste for explanations touched the man’s face. “Words—I do not speak of it. Words falter.” Abruptly he moved to the wall and touched one of the stone facets gently, as if he were caressing it. “Stone is alive. Do you see it? You are Stonedownor—do you see it? Yes, alive—alive and alert. Attentive. Everything—everything which transpires upon or within the Earth is seen—beheld—by the Earthrock.” As he spoke, enthusiasm came over him. Despite his awkwardness, he could not stop once he had begun. His head leaned close to the stone until he was peering deeply into its flat blackness. “But the—the process—the action of this seeing is slow. Lives like mine are futilely swift—Time—time!—is consumed as the seeing spreads—from the outer surfaces inward. And this time varies. Some veins pass their perception in to the mountain roots in millennia. Others require millennia of millennia.

  “Here”—he gestured around him without moving from where he stood—“can be seen the entire ancient history of the Land. For one whose work is to see. In these myriad facets are a myriad perceptions of all that has occurred. All!

  “It is my work to see—and to discover the order—and to preserve—so that the whole life of the Land may be known.”

  As he spoke, a tremor of passion shook the Unfettered One’s breathing.

  “Since the coming of the Wraiths, I have studied the fate of the One Forest. I have seen it since the first seed grew to become the great Tree. I have seen its awakening—its awareness—the peaceful communion of its Land-spanning consciousness. I have seen Forestals born and slain. I have seen the Colossus of the Fall exercise its interdict. The hand of the Forest is upon me. Here”—his hands touched the facet into which he stared as if the stone were full of anguish—“I see men with axes—men of the ground with blades formed from the bones of the ground— I see them cut—!”

  His voice trembled vividly. “I am Woodhelvennin. In this rock I see the desecration of trees. You are Stonedownor. You bear a rare fragment of High Wood, precious lomillialor.”

  Suddenly he turned from the wall and confronted Triock with a flush or urgent fervor, almost of desperation, in his old face. “Give it to me!” he begged. “It will help me see.” He came forward until his eager hands nearly touched Triock’s chest. “My life is not the equal of this rock.”

  Triock did not need to think or speak. If Covenant himself had been standing at his back, he would not have acted differently; he could not distrust an Unfettered One any more than he could have distrusted a Lord.

  Without hesitation, he drew out the High Wood rod and placed it in the tall man’s hands. Then, very quietly, he said, “The foes who pursue me also seek this lomillialor. It is a perilous thing I have given you.”

  The One did not appear to hear. As his fingers closed on the wood, his eyes rolled shut, and a quiver passed through his frame; he seemed to be drinking in the High Wood’s unique strength through his hands.

  But then he turned outward again. With several deep breaths he steadied himself until he was gazing calmly into Triock’s face.

  “Perilous,” he said. “I hear you. You spoke of the Land’s need. Do you require aid to fight your foes?”

  “I require a message.” All at once, Triock’s own urgency came boiling up in him, and he spouted, “The whole Land is at war! The Staff of Law has been lost again, and with it the Law of Death has been broken! Creatures that destroy stone have attacked Mithil Stonedown. Revelstone itself is besieged! I need—!”

  “I hear you,” the tall man repeated. His earlier awkwardness was gone; possession of the High Wood seemed to make him confident, capable. “Do not fear. I have found that I must help you also. Speak your need.”

  With an effort, Triock wrenched himself into a semblance of control. “You have heard the Wraiths,” he rasped. “They spoke to you of ur-viles—and white gold. The bearer of that white gold is a stranger to the Land, and he has returned. The Lords do not know this. They must be told.”

  “Yes.” The One held Triock’s hot gaze. “How?”

  “The Loresraat formed this High Wood so that messages may be spoken through it. I have no lore for such work. I am a Stonedownor, and my hands are not apt for wood. I—”

  But the Unfettered One accepted Triock’s explanation with a wave of his hand. “Who,” he asked, “who in Revelstone can hear such speaking?”

  “High Lord Mhoram.”

  “I do not know him. How can I reach him? I cannot direct my words to him if I do not know him.”

  Inspired by urgency, Triock answered, “He is the son of Tamarantha Variol-mate. You have known Tamarantha. The thought of her will guide you to him.”

  “Yes,” the One mused. “It is possible. I have—I have not forgotten her.”

  “Tell the High Lord that Thomas Covenant has returned to the Land and seeks to attack the Gray Slayer. Tell him that Thomas Covenant has sworn to destroy Foul’s Creche.”

  The One’s eyes widened at this. But Triock went on: “The message must be spoken now. I have been pursued. A blizzard will not prevent any eyes which could see the High Wood in my grasp.”

  “Yes,” the tall man said once more. “Very well—I will begin. Perhaps it will bring this intrusion to an end.”

  He turned as if dismissing Triock from his thoughts, and moved into the center of his cave. Facing the entrance of the chamber, he gathered the Wraiths around him so that he was surrounded in light, and held the lomillialor rod up before his face with both hands. Quietly he began to sing—a delicate, almost wordless melody that sounded strangely like a transposition, a rendering into human tones, of the Wraith song. As he sang, he closed his eyes, and his head tilted back until his forehead was raised toward the ceiling.

  “Mhoram,” he murmured through the pauses in his song, “Mhoram. Son of Variol and Tamarantha. Open your heart to hear me.”

  Triock stared at him, tense and entranced.

  “Tamarantha-son, open your heart. Mhoram.”
r />   Slowly power began to gleam from the core of the smooth rod.

  The next instant, Triock heard feet behind him. Something about them, something deadly and abominable, snatched his attention, spun him toward the entrance to the chamber.

  A voice as harsh as the breaking of stone grated, “Give it up. He cannot open his heart to you. He is caught in our power and will never open his heart again.”

  Yeurquin stood just within the cave, eyes exalted with madness.

  The sight stunned Triock. Yeurquin’s frozen apparel had been partially torn from him, and wherever his flesh was bare the skin hung in frostbitten tatters. The blizzard had clawed his face and hands to the bone. But no blood came from his wounds.

  He bore Quirrel in his arms. Her head dangled abjectly from her broken neck.

  When he saw Yeurquin, the Unfettered One recoiled as if he had been struck—reeled backward and staggered against the opposite wall of the cave, gaping in soundless horror.

  Together the Wraiths fled, screaming.

  “Yeurquin.” The death and wrong which shone from the man made Triock gag. He croaked the name as if he were strangling on it. “Yeurquin?”

  Yeurquin laughed with a ragged, nauseating sound. In gleeful savagery, he dropped Quirrel to the floor and stepped past her. “We meet at last,” he rasped to Triock. “I have labored for this encounter. I think I will make you pay for that labor.”

  “Yeurquin?” Staggering where he stood, Triock could see that the man should have been dead; the storm damage he had suffered was too great for anyone to survive. But some force animated him, some ferocity that relished his death kept him moving. He was an incarnated nightmare.

  The next moment, the Unfettered One mastered his shock, rushed forward. Wielding the lomillialor before him like a weapon, he cried hoarsely, “Turiya Raver! Tree foe! I know you—I have seen you. Melenkurion abatha! Leave this place. Your touch desecrates the very Earth.”

  Yeurquin winced under the flick of the potent words. But they did not daunt him. “Better dead feet like mine than idiocy like yours,” he smirked. “I think I will not leave this place until I have tasted your blood, Unfettered wastrel. You are so quick to give your life to nothing. Now you will give it to me.”

  The One did not flinch. “I will give you nothing but the lomillialor test of truth. Even you have cause to fear that, turiya Raver. The High Wood will burn you to the core.”

  “Fool!” the Raver laughed. “You have lived here so long that you have forgotten the meaning of power!”

  Fearlessly he started toward the two men.

  With a sharp cry, Triock threw off his stunned dismay. Sweeping his sword from its scabbard, he sprang at the Raver.

  Yeurquin knocked him effortlessly aside, sent him careening to smack his head against the wall. Then turiya closed with the Unfettered One.

  Pain slammed through Triock, flooded his mind with blood. Gelid agony shrieked in his chest where the Raver had struck him. But for one moment, he resisted unconsciousness, lurched to his feet. In torment, he saw turiya and the Unfettered One fighting back and forth, both grasping the High Wood. Then the Raver howled triumphantly. Bolts of sick, red-green power shot up through the Unfettered One’s arms and shattered his chest.

  When Triock plunged into darkness, the Raver had already started to dismember his victim. He was laughing all the while.

  EIGHT: Winter

  With snow swirling around him like palpable mist, Thomas Covenant left Mithil Stonedown in the company of Saltheart Foamfollower and Lena daughter of Atiaran. The sensation of purpose ran high in him—he felt that all his complex rages had at last found an effective focus—and he strode impatiently northward along the snow-clogged road as if he were no longer conscious of his still-unhealed forehead and lip, or of the damaged condition of his feet, or of fatigue. He walked leaning ahead into the wind like a fanatic.

  But he was not well, could not pretend for any length of time that he was well. Snowflakes hurried around him like subtle gray chips of Lord Foul’s malice, seeking to drain the heat of his life. And he felt burdened by Lena. The mother of Elena his daughter stepped proudly at his side as if his companionship honored her. Before he had traveled half a league toward the mouth of the valley, his knees were trembling, and his breath scraped unevenly past his sore lip. He was forced to stop and rest.

  Foamfollower and Lena regarded him gravely, concernedly. But his former resolution to accept help had deserted him; he was too angry to be carried like a child. He rejected with a grimace the tacit offer in Foamfollower’s eyes.

  The Giant also was not well—his wounds gave him pain—and he appeared to understand the impulse behind Covenant’s refusal. Quietly he asked, “My friend, do you know the way”—he hesitated as if he were searching for a short name—“the way to Ridjeck Thome, Foul’s Creche?”

  “I’m leaving that to you.”

  Foamfollower frowned. “I know the way—I have it graven in my heart past all forgetting. But if we are separated—”

  “I don’t have a chance if we’re separated,” Covenant muttered mordantly. He wished that he could leave the sound of leprosy out of his voice, but the malady was too rife in him to be stifled.

  “Separated? Who speaks of separation?” Lena protested before Foamfollower could reply. “Do not utter such things, Giant. We will not be separated. I have preserved— I will not part from him. You are old, Giant. You do not remember the giving of life to life in love—or you would not speak of separation.”

  In some way, her words twisted the deep knife of Foamfollower’s hurt. “Old, yes.” Yet after a moment he forced a wry grin onto his lips. “And you are altogether too young for me, fair Lena.”

  Covenant winced for them both. Have mercy on me, he groaned. Have mercy. He started forward again, but almost at once he tripped on a snow-hidden roughness in the road.

  Lena and Foamfollower caught him from either side and upheld him.

  He looked back and forth between them. “Treasure-berries. I need aliantha.”

  Foamfollower nodded and moved away briskly, as if his Giantish instincts told him exactly where to find the nearest aliantha. But Lena retained her hold on Covenant’s arm. She had not pulled the hood of her robe over her head, and her white hair hung like wet snow. She was gazing into Covenant’s face as if she were famished for the sight of him.

  He endured her scrutiny as long as he could. Then he carefully removed his arm from her fingers and said, “If I’m going to survive this, I’ll have to learn to stand on my own.”

  “Why?” she asked. “All are eager to aid—and none more eager than I. You have suffered enough for your aloneness.”

  Because I’m all I have, he answered. But he could not say such a thing to her. He was terrified by her need for him.

  When he did not reply, she glanced down for a moment, away from the fever of his gaze, then looked up again with the brightness of an idea in her eyes. “Summon the Ranyhyn.”

  The Ranyhyn?

  “They will come to you. They come to me at your command. It has hardly been forty days since they last came. They come each year on”—she faltered, looked around at the snow with a memory of fear in her face—“on the middle night of spring.” Her voice fell until Covenant could hardly hear her. “This year the winter cold in my heart would not go away. The Land forgot spring—forgot— Sunlight abandoned us. I feared—feared that the Ranyhyn would never come again—that all my dreams were folly.

  “But the stallion came. Sweat and snow froze in his coat, and ice hung from his muzzle. His breath steamed as he asked me to mount him. But I thanked him from the bottom of my heart and sent him home. He brought back such thoughts of you that I could not ride.”

  Her eyes had left his face, and now she fell silent as if she had forgotten why she was speaking. But when she raised her head, Covenant saw that her old face was full of tears. “Oh, my dear one,” she said softly, “you are weak and in pain. Summon the Ranyhyn and ride them as you de
serve.”

  “No, Lena.” He could not accept the kind of help the Ranyhyn would give him. He reached out and awkwardly brushed at her tears. His fingers felt nothing. “I made a bad bargain with them. I’ve made nothing but bad bargains.”

  “Bad?” she asked as if he amazed her. “You are Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. How could any doing of yours be bad?”

  Because it let me commit crimes.

  But he could not say that aloud either. He reacted instead as if she had struck the touchstone of his fury.

  “Listen, I don’t know who you think I am these days; maybe you’ve still got Berek Halfhand on the brain. But I’m not him—I’m not any kind of hero. I’m nothing but a broken-down leper, and I’m doing this because I’ve had it up to here with being pushed around. With or without your company I’m going to start getting even regardless of any misbegotten whatever that tries to get in my way. I’m going to do it my own way. If you don’t want to walk, you can go home.”

  Before she had a chance to respond, he turned away from her in shame, and found Foamfollower standing sadly beside him. “And that’s another thing,” he went on almost without pause. “I have also had it with your confounded misery. Either tell me the truth about what’s happened to you or stop sniveling.” He emphasized his last two words by grabbing treasure-berries from the Giant’s open hands. “Hell and blood! I’m sick to death of this whole thing.” Glaring up at the Giant’s face, he jammed aliantha into his mouth, chewed them with an air of helpless belligerence.

  “Ah, my friend,” Foamfollower breathed. “This way that you have found for yourself is a cataract. I have felt it in myself. It will bear you to the edge in a rush and hurl you into abysses from which there is no recovery.”

  Lena’s hands touched Covenant’s arm again, but he threw them off. He could not face her. Still glaring at Foamfollower, he said, “You haven’t told me the truth.” Then he turned and stalked away through the snow. In his rage, he could not forgive himself for being so unable to distinguish between hate and grief.