“I love you,” she replied in a voice wet with blood. “I have not changed.”
“Lena.” He struggled to return her smile, but the attempt convulsed his face as if he were about to shriek.
Her hand reached toward him, touched his forehead as if to smooth away his scowl. “Free the Ranyhyn,” she whispered.
The plea took her last strength. She died with blood streaming between her lips.
Covenant stared at it as if it were vituperation. His eyes had a feverish cast, a look of having been blistered from within. No words came to his mind, but he knew what had happened. Rape, treachery, now murder—he had done them all, he had committed every crime. He had broken the promise he had made after the battle of Soaring Woodhelven, when he swore that he would not kill again. For a long moment, he regarded his numb fingers as if they were things of no importance. Only the blood on them mattered. Then he pushed himself away from Lena. Crawling like an abject passion, he moved toward the Ranyhyn.
Its muzzle was frothed with pain, and its sides heaved horridly. But it watched Covenant’s approach steadily, as if for the first time in its life it was not afraid of the bearer of white gold. When he reached it, he went directly to its wound. The spear was deeply embedded; at first he did not believe he could draw it out. But he worked at it with his hands, digging his elbows into the Ranyhyn’s panting ribs. At last the shaft tore free. Blood pulsed from the wound, yet the horse lurched to its feet, stood wavering weakly on splayed legs, and nuzzled him as if to tell him that it would live.
“All right,” he muttered, speaking half to himself. “Go back. Go—tell all the others. Our bargain is over. No more bargains. No more —” The fire was falling into embers, and his voice faded as if he were losing strength along with it. Dark fog blew into him along the wind. But a moment later, he rallied. “No more bargains. Tell them.”
The Ranyhyn stood as if it were unwilling to leave him.
“Go on,” he insisted thickly. “You’re free. You’ve got to tell them. In the—in the name of Kelenbhrabanal, Father of Horses. Go.”
At the sound of that name, the Ranyhyn turned painfully and started to limp out of the hollow. When it reached the crest of the hill, it stopped and faced him once more. For an instant, he thought he could see it silhouetted against the night, rearing. Then it was gone.
He did not wait, did not rest. He was past taking any account of the cost of his actions. He caught up Pietten’s spear and used it as a staff to hold himself erect. His ankle screamed at him as it dragged the ground, but he set his teeth and struggled away from the fire. As soon as he left the range of its warmth, his wet clothing began to freeze.
He had no idea where he was headed, but he knew he had to go. On each breath that panted through his locked teeth, he whispered hate as if it were a question.
ELEVEN: The Ritual of Desecration
After Loerya left him, High Lord Mhoram stayed on the tower for the rest of the night. He kept himself warm against the bitter wind by calling up a flow of power through his staff from time to time and watched in silent dread as the pronged veins of malice in the ground pulsed at Revelstone like sick, green-red lava oozing its way into the Keep’s courage. The ill might which spread from samadhi Raver’s Stone and the staves of the ur-viles lit the night garishly; and at irregular intervals, fervid sparks writhed upward when the attack met resistance in the rock of the foothills.
Though it moved slowly, the hungry agony of the attack was now only scant yards from Revelstone’s walls. Through his feet, Mhoram could feel the Keep moaning in silent immobility, as if it ached to recoil from the leering threat of those veins.
But that was not why Mhoram stood throughout the long night exposed to the immedicable gall of the wind. He could have sensed the progress of the assault from anywhere in the Keep, just as he did not need his eyes to tell him how close the inhabitants of the city were to gibbering collapse. He watched because it was only by beholding Satansfist’s might with all his senses, perceiving it with all his resources in all its horror, that he could deal with it.
When he was away from the sight, dread seemed to fall on him from nowhere, adumbrate against his heart like the knell of an unmotivated doom. It confused his thoughts, paralyzed his instincts. Walking through the halls of Revelstone, he saw faces gray with inarticulate terror, heard above the constant, clenched mumble of sobs children howling in panic at the sight of their parents, felt the rigid moral exhaustion of the stalwart few who kept the Keep alive—Quaan, the three Lords, most of the Lorewardens, lillianrill, and rhadhamaerl. Then he could hardly master the passion of his futility, the passion which urged him to strike at his friends because it blamed him for failing the Land. A wild hopelessness moved in him, shouldered its way toward the front of his responses. And he alone of all the Lords knew how to make such hopelessness bear fruit.
But alone on the watchtower, with Satansfist’s army revealed below him, he could clarify himself, recognize what was being done to Revelstone. The winter and the attack assumed a different meaning. He no longer accused himself; he knew then that no one could be blamed for being inadequate in the face of such unanswerable malevolence. Destruction was easier than preservation, and when destruction had risen high enough, mere men and women could not be condemned if they failed to throw back the tide. Therefore he was able to resist his own capacity for desecration. His eyes burned like yellow fury at the creeping attack, but he was searching for defenses.
The aspect of the assault which most daunted him was its unwavering ferocity. He could see that the ur-viles maintained their part of the power by rotating their positions, allowing each wedge and loremaster to rest in turn. And he knew from experience that Lord Foul’s strength—his own prodigious might making use of the Illearth Stone—was able to drive armies mad, push them to greater savagery than their flesh could bear. But Satansfist was only one Giant, one body of mortal thew and bone and blood. Even a Giant-Raver should not have been able to sustain such an extravagant exertion for so long.
In addition, while samadhi concentrated on his attack, he might reasonably have been expected to lose some of his control over his army. Yet the whole horde, legion after legion, remained poised around Revelstone. Each creature in its own way bent the lust of its will at the Keep. And the emerald expenditure of samadhi’s strength never blinked. Clearly Lord Foul supported his army and its commander with might so immense that it surpassed all Mhoram’s previous conceptions of power.
He could see no hope for Revelstone anywhere except in the cost of that unwavering exertion. The defenders would have to hope and pray that Satansfist’s aegis broke before they did. If they could not contrive to endure the Raver’s attack, they were doomed.
When Mhoram returned to the hollow stone halls in the first gray, dim ridicule of dawn, he was ready to strive for that endurance.
The hushed, tight wave of panic that struck him as he strode down the main passage into the Keep almost broke his resolve. He could feel people grinding their teeth in fear behind the walls on either side of him. Shouts reached him from a far gallery; two parties had banded together to defend themselves from each other. Around a bend he surprised a hungry group that was attempting to raid one of the food storerooms; the people believed that the cooks in the refectories were preparing poison.
His anger blazed up in him, and he surged forward, intending to strike them where they stood in their folly. But before he reached them, they fell into panic and fled from him as if he were a ghoul. Their retreat left two of Quaan’s warriors standing guard in front of the storeroom as if they were watching each other rather than the supplies. Even these two regarded Mhoram with dread.
He mastered himself, forced a smile onto his crooked lips, said a few encouraging words to the guards. Then he hastened away.
He saw now that Revelstone was at the flash point of crisis. To help it, he had to provide the city with something more than moments of temporary aid. Grimly, he ignored the other needs, the multitud
es of fear, which cut at his awareness. As he strode along passages and down stairways, he used his staff to summon Hearthrall Tohrm and all the Gravelingases. He put his full authority into the command, so that as many rhadhamaerl as possible might resist their panic and answer.
When he reached the bright floor of the courtyard around which the Lords’ chambers were situated, he felt a brief surge of relief to see that Tohrm and a dozen Gravelingases were already there, and more were on their way. Soon a score of the rhadhamaerl—nearly all the Keep’s masters of stone-lore—stood on the shining rock, waiting to hear him.
For a moment, the High Lord gazed at the men, wincing inwardly at their misery. They were Gravelingases of the rhadhamaerl, and were being hurt through the very stone around them. Then he nodded sharply to himself. This was the right place for him to begin; if he could convince these men that they were able to resist Satansfist’s ill, they would be able to do much for the rest of the city.
With an effort that strained the muscles of his face, he smiled for them. Tohrm answered with an awkward grin which quickly fell into apprehension again.
“Gravelingases,” Mhoram began roughly, “we have spent too long each of us alone enduring this ill in small ways. We must put our strength together to form a large defense.”
“We have obeyed your orders,” one man muttered sullenly.
“That is true,” Mhoram returned. “Thus far we have all given our strength to encourage the people of Revelstone. You have kept your graveling fires bright, as I commanded. But wisdom does not always come swiftly. Now I see with other eyes. I have listened more closely to the voice of the Keep. I have felt the rock itself cry out against this evil. And I say now that we must resist in other ways if Revelstone is to endure.
“We have mistaken our purpose. The Land does not live for us—we live for the Land. Gravelingases, you must turn your lore to the defense of the stone. Here, in this place”—he touched the radiant floor with the heel of his staff—“slumbers power that perhaps only a rhadhamaerl may comprehend. Make use of it. Make use of any possible lore—do here together whatever must be done. But find some means to seal the heart-rock of Revelstone against this blight. The people can provide for themselves if Revelstone remains brave.”
As he spoke, he realized that he should have understood these things all along. But the fear had numbed him, just as it had icebound the Gravelingases. And like him they now began to comprehend. They shook themselves, struck their hands together, looked around them with preparations rather than dread in their eyes. Tohrm’s lips twitched with their familiar grin.
Without hesitation, High Lord Mhoram left the Gravelingases alone to do their work. As he walked along the tunnel away from the courtyard, he felt like a man who had discovered a new magic.
He directed his steps toward one of the main refectories, whose chief cook he knew to be a feisty, food-loving man not prone to either awe or fear; and as he moved, he sent out more summonses, this time calling his fellow Lords and Hearthrall Borillar’s Hirebrands. Amatin and Trevor answered tensely, and Borillar sent a half-timid sign through the walls. But a long moment passed before Loerya answered, and when her signal came it was torpid, as if she were dazed with dismay. Mhoram hoped that the rhadhamaerl could make themselves felt soon, so that people like Loerya might not altogether lose heart; and he climbed up through the levels of the Keep toward the refectory as if he were surging through viscous dread.
But as he neared the kitchen, he saw a familiar figure dodge away into a side passage, obviously trying to avoid him. He swung around the corner after the man, and came face to face with Trell Atiaran-mate.
The big man looked feverish. His graying beard seemed to bristle hotly, his sunken cheeks were flushed, and his dull, hectic eyes slid away from Mhoram’s gaze in all directions, as if he could not control their wandering. He stood under Mhoram’s scrutiny as if he might break and run at any moment.
“Trell Gravelingas,” Mhoram said carefully, “the other rhadhamaerl are at work against this ill. They need your strength.”
Trell’s gaze flicked once across Mhoram’s face like a lash of anger. “You wish to preserve Revelstone so that it will be intact for the Despiser’s use.” He filled the word intact with so much bitterness that it sounded like a curse.
At the accusation, Mhoram’s lips tightened. “I wish to preserve the Keep for its own sake.”
The roaming of Trell’s eyes had an insatiable cast, as if they were afraid of going blind. “I do not work well with others,” he said dimly after a moment. Then, without transition, he became urgent. “High Lord, tell me your secret.”
Mhoram was taken aback. “My secret?”
“It is a secret of power. I must have power.”
“For what purpose?”
At first, Trell squirmed under the question. But then his gaze hit Mhoram again. “Do you wish Revelstone intact?” Again intact spat like gall past his lips. He turned sharply and strode away.
For an instant, Mhoram felt a cold hand of foreboding on the back of his neck, and he watched Trell go as if the big Gravelingas trailed plumes of calamity. But before he could grasp the perception, Revelstone’s ambience of dread clouded it, obscured it. He did not dare give Trell his secret knowledge. Even a Gravelingas might be capable of invoking the Ritual of Desecration.
With an effort, he remembered his purpose, and started again toward the refectory.
Because he had been delayed, all the people he had summoned were waiting for him. They stood ineffectively among the forlorn tables in the great, empty hall, and watched his approach with trepidation, as if he were a paradoxically fatal hope, a saving doom. “High Lord,” the chief cook began at once, quelling his fear with anger, “I cannot control these useless sheep disguised as cooks. Half have deserted me, and the rest will not work. They swing knives and refuse to leave the corners where they hide.”
“Then we must restore their courage.” Despite the scare Trell had given him, Mhoram found that he could smile more easily. He looked at the Lords and Hirebrands. “Do you not feel it?”
Amatin nodded with tears in her eyes. Trevor grinned.
A change was taking place under their feet.
It was a small change, almost subliminal. Yet soon even the Hirebrands could feel it. Without either heat or light, it warmed and lit their hearts.
On a barely palpable level, the rock of Revelstone was remembering that it was obdurate granite, not susceptible sandstone.
Mhoram knew that this change could not be felt everywhere in the Keep—that all the strength of the rhadhamaerl would never suffice to throw back the lurid dread of Satansfist’s attack. But the Gravelingases had made a start. Now anyone who felt the alteration would know that resistance was still possible.
He let his companions taste the granite for a moment. Then he began the second part of his defense. He asked Hearthrall Borillar for all the healing wood essence—the rillinlure—he could provide, and sent the other Hirebrands to help the chief cook begin working again. “Cook and do not stop,” he commanded. “The other refectories are paralyzed. All who seek food must find it here.”
Borillar was doubtful. “Our stores of rillinlure will be swiftly consumed in such quantities of food. None will remain for the future of this siege.”
“That is as it must be. Our error has been to conserve and portion our strength against future perils. If we fail to endure this assault, we will have no future.” When Borillar still hesitated, Mhoram went on: “Do not fear, Hearthrall. Satansfist himself must rest after such an exertion of power.”
After a moment, Borillar recognized the wisdom of the High Lord’s decision. He left to obey, and Mhoram turned to the other Lords. “My friends, to us falls another task. We must bring the people here so that they may eat and be restored.”
“Send the Warward,” said Loerya. Her pain at being away from her daughters was plainly visible in her face.
“No. Fear will cause some to resist with violence. W
e must call them, make them wish to come. We must put aside our own apprehension, and send a call like a melding through the Keep, so that the people will choose to answer.”
“Who will defend Revelstone—while we work here?” Trevor asked.
“The peril is here. We must not waste our strength on useless watching. While this attack continues, there will be no other. Come. Join your power to mine. We, the Lords, cannot permit the Keep to be thus broken in spirit.”
As he spoke, he drew a fire bright and luminescent from his staff. Tuning it to the ambience of the stone, he set it against one wall so that it ran through the rock like courage, urging all the people within its range to lift up their heads and come to the refectory.
At his back, he felt Amatin, Trevor, then Loerya following his example. Their Lords-fire joined his; their minds bent to the same task. With their help, he pushed dread away, shared his own indomitable conviction, so that the appeal which radiated from them into Revelstone carried no flaw or dross of fear.
Soon people began to answer. Hollow-eyed like the victims of nightmares, they entered the refectory—accepted steaming trays from the chief cook and the Hirebrands—sat at the tables and began to eat. And when they had eaten, they found themselves ushered to a nearby hall, where the Lorewardens enjoined them to sing boldly in the face of defeat:
Berek! Earthfriend!—help and weal,
Battle-aid against the foe!
Earth gives and answers Power’s peal,
Ringing, Earthfriend! help and heal!
Clean the Land from bloody death and woe!
More and more people came, drawn by the music, and the Lords, and the reaffirmation of Revelstone’s granite. Supporting each other, carrying their children, dragging their friends, they fought their fear and came because the deepest impulses of their hearts responded to food, music, rillinlure, rock—to the Lords and the life of Revelstone.
After the first influx, the Lords took turns resting so that fatigue would not make their efforts waver. When the rillinlure gave out, the Hirebrands provided special fires for the returning cooks, and joined their own lore to the call of the Lords. Quaan’s warriors gave up all pretense of guarding the walls, and came to help the cooks—clearing tables, cleaning pots and trays, carrying supplies from the storerooms.
Thomas Covenant 03: Power That Preserves Page 25