Gibbon shouted orders Covenant could not hear, threw an arc of emerald across the court, then disappeared.
Under a moil of force, the floor began to shine like silver magma.
Somewhere amid the wreckage of the soothtell, he heard Lord Foul laughing.
The sound only strung his passion tighter.
When he looked about him, bodies lay everywhere. Only one Rider was left standing. The man's hood had been blown back, revealing contorted features and frantic eyes.
Intuitively, Covenant guessed that this was Santonin.
In his hands, he grasped a flake of stone which steamed like green ice, held it so that it pressed against his rukh. Pure emerald virulence raged outward.
The Illearth Stone.
Covenant had no limits, no control. A rave of force hurled Santonin against the far wall, scorched his raiment to ashes, blackened his bones.
The Stone rolled free, lay pulsing like a diseased heart on the bright floor.
Reaching out with flames, Covenant drew the Stone to himself. He clenched it in his half-hand. Foamfollower had died so that the Illearth Stone could be destroyed.
Destroyed I
A silent blast stunned the cavity; a green shriek devoured by argent. The Stone-flake vanished in steam and fury.
With a tremendous splitting noise, the floor cracked from wall to wall.
“Unbeliever!”
He could barely hear Brinn.
“Ur-Lord!”
He turned and peered through fire at the Haruchai.
“The prisoners!” Brinn barked. “The Clave holds your friends! Lives will be shed to strengthen the Banefire!”
The shout penetrated Covenant's mad rapture. He nodded. With a flick of his mind, he shattered Brinn's chains.
At once, Brinn sprang from the catafalque and dashed out of the cavity.
Covenant followed in flame.
At the end of the hall, the Haruchai launched himself against three Riders. Their rukhs burned. Covenant lashed argent at them, sent them sprawling, reduced their rukhs to scoria.
He and Brinn hastened away through the passages of Revelstone.
Brinn led; he knew how to find the hidden door to the hold. Shortly, he and Covenant reached the Raver-made entrance. Covenant summoned fire to break down the door; but before he could strike, Brinn slapped the proper spot in the invisible architrave. Limned in red tracery, the portal opened.
Five Riders waited within the tunnel. They were prepared to fight; but Brinn charged them with such abandon that their first blasts missed. In an instant, he had felled two of them. Covenant swept the other three aside, and followed Brinn, running toward the hold.
The dungeon had no other defenders; the Clave had not had time to organize more Riders. And if Gibbon were still alive, he might conceivably withdraw his forces rather than risk losses which would cripple the Clave. When Brinn and Covenant rushed into the hold and found it empty, Brinn immediately leaped to the nearest door and began to throw back the bolts,
But Covenant was rife with might, wild magic which demanded utterance. Thrusting Brinn aside, he unleashed an explosion that made the very granite of Revelstone stagger. With a shrill scream of metal, all the cell doors sprang from their moorings and clanged to the floor, ringing insanely.
At once, scores of Haruchai emerged, ready to fight. Ten of them raced to defend the entrance to the tunnel; the rest scattered toward other cells, searching for more prisoners.
Eight or nine people of the Land-Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin-appeared as if they were dazzled by the miracle of then: reprieve.
Vain left his cell slowly. When he saw Covenant, saw Covenant's passionate fire, his face stretched into a black grin, the grin of a man who recognized what Covenant was doing. The grin of a fiend.
Two Haruchai supported Sunder. The Graveller had a raw weal around his neck, as if he had been rescued from a gibbet, and he looked weak. He gaped at Covenant.
Hollian came, wan and frightened, from her cell. Her eyes flinched from Covenant as if she feared to know him. When she saw Sunder, she hastened to him and wrapped herself in his arms.
Covenant remained still, aching for Linden. Vain grinned like the sound of Lord Foul's laughter.
Then Brinn and another Haruchai bore Linden out into the hall. She lay limp in their arms, dead or unconscious, in sopor more compulsory than any sleep.
When Covenant saw her, he let out a howl which tore chunks from the ceiling and pulverized them until the air was full of fine powder.
He could not stop himself until Brinn yelled to him that she was alive.
PART III. PURPOSE
Twenty: The Quest
HE left the hold, left his companions, because he could not bear to watch the impenetrable nightmares writhe across Linden's mien. She was not afraid of his leprosy. She had supported him at every crisis. This was the result. No one could rouse her. She lay in a stupor like catatonia, and dreamed anguish.
He went toward the upland plateau because he needed to recover some kind of hope.
Already, the frenzy of his power had begun to recoil against him. Vain's smile haunted him like an echo of horror and scorn. His rescue from Stonemight Woodhelven was no different than this. How many people had he killed? He had no control over his power. Power and venom controlled him.
Yet he did not release the wild magic. Revelstone was still full of Riders. He glimpsed them running past the ends of long halls, preparing themselves for defence or counterattack. He did not have enough blood in his veins to sustain himself without the fire of his ring: once he dropped his power, he would be beyond any self-protection. He would have to trust the Haruchai to save him, save his friends. And that thought also was bitter to him. Banner's people had paid such severe prices in his name. How could he permit them to serve him again?
How many people had he killed?
Shedding flames like tears, he climbed up through the levels of Revelstone toward the plateau.
And Brinn strode at his side as if the Haruchai had already committed himself to this service. Somewhere he had found a cloak which he now draped across Covenant's shoulders. The
Unbeliever shrugged it into place, hardly noticing. It helped to protect him against the shock of blood-loss.
Covenant needed hope. He had gained much from the soothtell; but those insights paled beside the shock of Linden's straits, paled beside the mounting self-abomination of what he had done with his power. He had not known he was so capable of slaughter. He could not face the demands of his new knowledge without some kind of hope.
He did not know where else to turn except to Glimmermere. To the Earthpower which remained still vital enough to provide Glimmermere with water, even when all the Land lay under a desert sun. To the blade which lay in the deeps of the lake.
Loric's krill.
He did not want it because it was a weapon. He wanted it because it was an alternative, a tool of power which might prove manageable enough to spare him any further reliance upon his ring.
And he wanted it because Vain's grin continued to knell through his head. In that grin, he had seen Vain's makers, the roynish and cruel beings he remembered. They had lied to Foamfollower. Vain's purpose was not greatly to be desired. It was the purpose of a fiend. Covenant had seen Vain kill, seen himself kill, and knew the truth.
And Loric, who was Kevin's father, had been called Vilesilencer. He had formed the krill to stem the harm of Vain's ancestors. Perhaps the krill would provide an answer to Vain.
That, too, was a form of hope. Covenant needed hope. When he reached the open plateau, the brightness of his power made the night seem as black and dire as Vain's obsidian flesh.
No one had been able to rouse Linden. She was caught in the toils of a heinous nightmare, and could not fight free. What evil had been practiced upon her?
And how many people had he killed? He, who had sworn never to kill again, and had not kept that oath. How many?
His own fire blinded him; he could not see any stars
. The heavens gaped over him like a leper's doom. How could any man who lacked simple human sensitivity hope to control wild magic? The wild magic which destroys peace. He felt numb, and full of venom, and could not help himself.
Wrapped in argent like a new incarnation of the Sunbane, he traversed the hills toward Glimmermere. The tarn was hidden by the terrain; but he knew his way.
Brinn walked beside him, and did not speak. The Haruchai seemed content to support whatever Covenant intended. In this same way, the Bloodguard had been content to serve the Lords. Their acceptance had cost them two thousand years without love or sleep or death. And it had cost them corruption; like Foamfollower, Banner had been forced to watch his people become the thing they hated. Covenant did not know how to accept Brinn's tacit offer. How could he risk repeating the fate of the Bloodguard? But he was in need, and did not know how to refuse.
Then he saw it: Glimmermere lying nestled among the hills. Its immaculate surface reflected his silver against the black night, so that the water looked like a swath of wild magic surrounded, about to be smothered, by the dark vitriol of ur-viles. Avid white which only made Vain grin. But Covenant's power was failing; he had lost too much blood; the reaction to what he had done was too strong. He lumbered stiff-kneed down to the water's edge, stood trembling at the rim of Glimmermere, and fought himself to remain alight just a little longer.
Fire and darkness sprang back at him from the water. He had bathed once in Glimmermere; but now he felt too tainted to touch this vestige of Earthpower. And he did not know the depth of the pool. High Lord Mhoram had thrown the krill here as an act of faith in the Land's future. Surely he had believed the blade to be beyond reach. Covenant would never be able to swim that far down. And he could not ask Brinn to do it. He felt dismayed by the implications of Brinn's companionship; he could not force himself to utter an active acceptance of Brinn's service. The krill seemed as distant as if it had never existed.
Perhaps none of this had ever existed. Perhaps he was merely demented, and Vain's grin was the leer of his insanity. Perhaps he was already dead with a knife in his chest, experiencing the hell his leprosy had created for him.
But when he peered past the flaming silver and midnight, he saw a faint echo from the depths. The krill. It replied to his power as it had replied when he had first awakened it. Its former arousal had led ineluctably to Elena's end and the breaking of the Law of Death. For a moment, he feared it, feared the keenness of its edges and the weight of culpability it implied. He had loved Elena-But the wild magic was worse. The venom was worse. He could not control them,
“How many-?” His voice tore the silence clenched in his throat. “How many of them did I kill?”
Brinn responded dispassionately out of the night, “One score and one, ur-Lord.”
Twenty-one? Oh, God!
For an instant, he thought that the sinews of his soul would rend, must rend, that his joints would be ripped asunder. But then a great shout of power blasted through his chest, and white flame erupted toward the heavens.
Glimmermere repeated the concussion. Suddenly, the whole surface of the lake burst into fire. Flame mounted in a gyre; the water of the lake whirled. And from the centre of the whirl came a clear white beam in answer to his call.
The krill rose into view. It shone, bright and inviolate, in the heart of the lake-a long double-edged dagger with a translucent gem forged into the cross of its guards and haft. The light came from its gem, reiterating Covenant's fire, as if the jewel and his ring were brothers. The night was cast back by its radiance, and by his power, and by the high flames of Glimmermere.
Still the krill was beyond reach. But he did not hesitate now. The whirl of the water and the gyring flames spoke to him of things which he understood: vertigo and paradox; the eye of stability in the core of the contradiction. Opening his arms to the fire, he stepped out into the lake.
Earthpower upheld him. Conflagration which replied to his conflagration spun around him and through him, and bore his weight. Floating like a flicker of shadow through the argence, he walked toward the centre of Glimmermere.
In his weakness, he felt that the fire would rush him out of himself, reduce him to motes of mortality and hurl him at the empty sky. The krill seemed more substantial than his flesh; the iron more full of meaning than his wan bones. But when he stooped to it and took hold of it, it lifted in his hands and arced upward, leaving a slash of brilliance across the night.
He clutched it to his chest and turned back toward Brinn.
Now his fatigue closed over him. No longer could he keep his power alight. The fingers of his will unclawed their grip and failed. At once, the flames of Glimmermere began to subside.
But still the lake upheld him. The Earthpower gave him this gift as it had once gifted Berek Halfhand's despair on the slopes of Mount Thunder. It sustained him, and did not let him go until he stumbled to the shore in darkness.
Night lay about him and in him. His eyes descried nothing but the dark as if they had been burned out of his head. Even the shining of the gem seemed to shed no illumination. Shorn now of power, he could no longer grasp the krill. It became hot in his hands, hot enough to touch the nerves which still lived. He dropped it to the ground, where it shone like the last piece of light in the world. Mutely, he knelt beside it, with his back to Glimmermere as if he had been humbled. He felt alone in the Land, and incapable of himself.
But he was not alone. Brinn tore a strip from his tunic-a garment made from an ochre material which resembled vellum-and wrapped the krill so that it could be handled. For a moment, he placed a gentle touch on Covenant's shoulder. Then he said quietly, “Ur-Lord, come. The Clave will attempt to strike against us. We must go.”
As the gleam of the krill was silenced, the darkness became complete. It was a balm to Covenant, solace for the aggrievement of power. He ached for it to go on assuaging him forever. But he knew Brinn spoke the truth. Yes, he breathed. We must go. Help me.
When he raised his head, he could see the stars. They glittered as if only their own beauty could console them for their loneliness. The moon was rising. It was nearly full.
In silence and moonlight, Covenant climbed to his feet and began to carry his exhaustion back toward Revelstone.
After a few steps, he accepted the burden of the krill from Brinn and tucked it under his belt. Its warmth rested there like a comfort against the knotted self-loathing in his stomach.
Stumbling and weary, he moved without knowing how he could ever walk as far as Revelstone. But Brinn aided him, supported him when he needed help, let him carry himself when he could. After a time that passed, like the sequences of delirium, they gained the promontory and the mouth of the na-Mhoram's Keep.
One of the Haruchai awaited them outside the tunnel which led down into Revelstone. As Covenant lurched to a halt, the Haruchai bowed; and Brinn said, “Ur-Lord, this is Ceer.”
“Ur-Lord,” Ceer said.
Covenant blinked at Mm, but could not respond. He seemed to have no words left.
Expressionlessly, Ceer extended a leather pouch toward him.
He accepted it. When he unstopped the pouch, he recognized the smell of metheglin. At once, he began to drink. His drained body was desperate for fluid. Desperate. He did not lower the pouch until it was empty.
“Ur-Lord,” Ceer said then, “the Clave gathers about the Banefire. We harry them, and they make no forays-but there is great power in their hands. And four more of the Haruchai have been slain. We have guided all prisoners from Revelstone. We watch over them as we can. Yet they are not safe. The Clave holds coercion to sway our minds, if they but choose to exert it. We know this to our cost. We must flee.”
Yes, Covenant mumbled inwardly. Flee. I know. But when he spoke, the only word he could find was, “Linden-?”
Without inflection, Ceer replied, “She has awakened.”
Covenant did not realize that he had fallen until he found himself suspended in Brinn's arms. For a long moment,
he could not force his legs to straighten. But the metheglin helped him. Slowly, he took his own weight, stood upright again.
“How-?”
“Ur-Lord, we strove to wake her.” Suppressing the lilt of his native tongue to speak Covenant's language made Ceer sound completely detached. “But she lay as the dead, and would not be succoured. We bore her from the Keep, knowing not what else to do. Yet your black companion-” He paused, asking for a name.
“Vain,” Covenant said, almost choking on the memory of that grin. “He's an ur-vile.”
A slight contraction of his eyebrows expressed Ceer's surprise; but he did not utter his thoughts aloud. “Vain,” he resumed, “stood by unheeding for a time. But then of a sudden he approached Linden Avery the Chosen.” Dimly, Covenant reflected that the Haruchai must already have spoken to Sunder or Hollian. “Knowing nothing of him, we strove to prevent him. But he cast us aside as if we were not who we are. He knelt to the Chosen, placed his hand upon her. She awakened.”
A groan of incomprehension and dread twisted Covenant's throat; but Ceer went on. “Awakening, she cried out and sought to flee. She did not know us. But the Stonedownors your companions comforted her. And still”- a slight pause betrayed Ceer's uncertainty — "Vain had not done. Ur-Lord, he bowed before her-he, who is heedless of the Haruchai, and deaf to all speech. He placed his forehead upon her feet.
“This was fear to her,” Ceer continued. “She recoiled to the arms of the Stonedownors. They also do not know this Vain. But they stood to defend her if need be. He rose to his feet, and there he stands yet, still unheeding, as a man caught in the coercion of the Clave. He appears no longer conscious of the Chosen, or of any man or woman.”
Ceer did not need to speak his thought; Covenant could read it in his flat eyes.
We do not trust this Vain.
But Covenant set aside the question of Vain. The krill was warm against his belly; and he had no strength for distractions. His path was clear before him, had been clear ever since he had absorbed the meaning of the soothtell. And Linden was awake. She had been restored to him. Surely now he could hold himself together long enough to set his purpose in motion.
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