Lord Foul's Bane

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Authoritatively, High Lord Prothall rattled, "Thomas Covenant, you must give us some token that your tale is true."

  "Token?" Covenant groaned.

  "Give us proof that we should trust you. You have uttered a doom upon our lives. That we believe. But perhaps it is your purpose to lead us from the true defense of the Land. Give us some token, Unbeliever."

  Through his quavering, Covenant felt the impenetrable circumstance of his dream clamp shut on him, deny every desire for hope or independence. He climbed to his feet, strove to meet the crisis erect. As a last resort, he grated to Foamfollower, "Tell them. Atiaran blamed herself for what happened to the Celebration. Because she ignored the warnings. Tell them."

  He burned at Foamfollower, willing the Giant to support his last chance for autonomy, and after a grave moment the Giant said, "My friend Thomas Covenant speaks truth, in his way. Atiaran Trell-mate believed the worst of herself."

  "Nevertheless!" Osondrea snapped. "Perhaps she blamed herself for guiding him to the Celebration for enabling- Her pain does not approve him." And Prothall insisted in a low voice, "Your token, Covenant. The necessity for judgment is upon us. You must choose between the Land and the Land's Despiser."

  Covenant, help them!

  "No!" he gasped hoarsely, whirling to face the High Lord. "It wasn't my fault. Don't you see that this is just what Foul wants you to do?"

  Prothall stood, braced his weight on his staff. His stature seemed to expand in power as he spoke. "No, I do not see. You are closed to me. You ask to be trusted, but you refuse to show trustworthiness. No. I demand the token by which you refuse us. I am Prothall son of Dwillian, High Lord by the choice of the Council. I demand."

  For one long instant, Covenant remained suspended in decision. His eyes fell to the graveling pit. Covenant, help them! With a groan, he remembered how much Atiaran had paid to place him where he stood now. Her pain does not approve. In counterpoint he heard Bannor saying, Two thousand years. Life or death. We do not know. But the face he saw in the fire-stones was his wife's. Joan! he cried. Was one sick body more important than everything?

  He tore open his shirt as if he were trying to bare his heart. From the patch of clingor on his chest, be snatched his wedding band, jammed it onto his ring finger, raised his left fist like a defiance. But he was not defiant. "I can't use it!" he shouted lornly, as if the ring were still a symbol of marriage, not a talisman of wild magic. "I'm a leper!"

  Astonishment rang in the Close, clanging changes m the air. The Hearthralls and Garth were stunned. Prothall shook his head as if he were trying to wake up for the first time in his life. Intuitive comprehension broke like a bow wave on Mhoram's face, and he mapped to his feet in stiff attention. Grinning gratefully, Foamfollower stood as well. Lord Osondrea also joined Mhoram, but there was no relief in her eyes. Covenant could see her shouldering her way through a throng of confusions to the crux of the situation- Could see her thinking, Save or damn, save or damn. She alone among the Lords appeared to realize that teen this token did not suffice.

  Finally the High Lord mastered himself. "Now at list we know how to honor you," he breathed. "Ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and white gold Wider, be welcome and true. Forgive us, for we did not know. Yours is the wild magic that destroys peace. And power is at all times a dreadful thing." The Lords saluted Covenant as if they wished to both invoke and ward against him, then together began to sing:

  There is wild magic graven in every rock, contained for white gold to unleash or control gold, rare metal, not born of the Land, nor ruled, limited, subdued by the Law with which the Land was created (for the Land is beautiful, as if it were a strong soul's dream of peace and harmony, and Beauty is not possible without discipline and the Law which gave birth to Time is the Land's Creator's self-control)but keystone rather, pivot, crux for the anarchy out of which Time was made, and with Time Earth, and with Earth those who people it: wild magic restrained in every particle of life, and unleashed or controlled by gold (not born of the Land) because that power is the anchor of the arch of life that spans and masters Time: and white-white gold, not ebon, ichor, incarnadine, viridian because white is the hue of bone: structure of flesh, discipline of life.

  This power is a paradox, because Power does not exist without Law, and wild magic has no Law; and white gold is a paradox, because it speaks for the bone of life, but has no part of the Land. And he who wields white wild magic gold is a paradox for he is everything and nothing,

  hero and fool, potent, helpless and with the one word of truth or treachery he will save or damn the Earth because he is mad and sane, cold and passionate, lost and found.

  It was an involuted song, curiously harmonized, with no resolving cadences to set the hearers at rest. And in it Covenant could hear the vulture wings of Foul's voice saying, You have might, but you will never know what it is. You will not be able to fight me at the last. As the song ended, he wondered if his struggling served or defied the Despiser's manipulations. He could not tell. But he hated and feared the truth in Foul's words. He cut into the silence which followed the Lords' hymning. "I don't know how to use it. I don't want to know. That's not why I wear it. If you think I'm some kind of personified redemption-it's a lie. I'm a leper."

  "Ah, ur-Lord Covenant," Prothall sighed as the Lords and Foamfollower reseated themselves, "let me say again, please forgive us. We understand much now -why you were summoned- why the Hirebrand Baradakas treated you as he did-why Drool Rockworm attempted to ensnare you at the Celebration of Spring. Please understand in turn that knowledge of the ring is necessary to us. Your semblance to Berek Halfhand is not gratuitous. But, sadly, we cannot tell you how to use the white gold. Alas, we know little enough of the Lore we already possess. And I fear that if we held and comprehended all Seven Wards and Words, the wild magic would still be beyond us. Knowledge of white gold has come down ID us through the ancient prophecies-foretellings, as Saltheart Foamfollower has observed, which say much bet clarify little-but we comprehend nothing of the wild magic. Still, the prophecies are clear about your importance. So I name you `ur-Lord,' a sharer of all the matters of the Council until you depart from us. We must trust you."

  Pacing back and forth now on the spur of his conflicting needs, Covenant growled, "Baradakas said just about the same thing. By hell! You people terrify me. When I try to be responsible, you pressure me-and when I collapse you You're not asking the right questions. You don't have the vaguest notion of what a leper is, and it doesn't even occur to you to inquire. That's why Foul chose me for this. Because I can't- Damnation! Why don't you ask me about where I come from? I've got to tell you. The world I come from doesn't allow anyone to live except on its own terms. Those terms-those terms contradict yours."

  "What are its terms?" the High Lord asked carefully.

  "That your world is a dream."

  In the startled stillness of the Close, Covenant grimaced, winced as images flashed at him-courthouse columns, an old beggar, the muzzle of the police car. A dream! he panted feverishly. A dream! None of this is happening-!

  Then Osondrea shot out, "What? A dream? Do you mean to say that you are dreaming? Do you believe that you are asleep?"

  "Yes!" He felt weak with fear; his revelation bereft him of a shield, exposed him to attack. But he could not recant it. He needed it to regain some kind of honesty. "Yes."

  "Indeed!" she snapped. "No doubt that explains the slaughter of the Celebration. Tell me, Unbeliever -do you consider that a nightmare, or does your world relish such dreams?"

  Before Covenant could retort, Lord Mhoram said, "Enough, sister Osondrea. He torments himself sufficently."

  Glaring, she fell silent, and after a moment Prothall said, "It may be that gods have such dreams as this. But we are mortals. We can only resist ill or surrender. Either way, we perish. Were you sent to mock 3 us for this?"

  "Mock you?" Covenant could not find the words to respond. He chopped dumbly at the thought with his halfhand. "It's the other way arou
nd. He's mocking me." When all the Lords looked at him in incomprehension, he cried abruptly, "I can feel the pulse in my fingertips! But that's impossible. I've got a disease. An incurable disease. I've-I've got to figure out a way to keep from going crazy. Hell and blood! I don't want to lose my mind just because some perfectly decent character in a dream needs something from me that I can't produce."

  "Well, that may be." Prothall's voice held a note of sadness and sympathy, as if he were listening to some abrogation or repudiation of sanity from a revered seer. "But we will trust you nonetheless. You are bitter, and bitterness is a sign of concern. I trust that. And what you say also meets the old prophecy. I fear the time is coming when you will be the Land's last hope."

  "Don't you understand?" Covenant groaned, unable to silence the ache in his voice. "That's what Foul wants you to think."

  "Perhaps," Mhoram said thoughtfully. "Perhaps." Then, as if he had reached a decision, he turned the peril of his gaze straight at Covenant. "Unbeliever, I must ask you if you have resisted Lord Foul. I do not speak of the Celebration. When he bore you from Drool Rockworm to Kevin's Watch-did you oppose him?"

  The question made Covenant feel abruptly frail, as if it had snapped a cord of his resistance. "I didn't know how." Wearily, he reseated himself in the loneliness of his chair. "I didn't know what was happening."

  "You are ur-Lord now," murmured Mhoram. "There is no more need for you to sit there."

  "No need to sit at all," amended Prothall, with sadden briskness. "There is much work to be done. We must think and probe and plan-whatever action we will take in this trial must be chosen quickly. We will meet again tonight. Tuvor, Garth, Birinair, Tohrm -prepare yourselves and those in your command. Bring whatever thoughts of strategy you have to the Council tonight. And tell all the Keep that Thomas Covenant has been named ur-Lord. He is a stranger and a guest. Birinair-begin your work for the Giants at once. Bannor, I think the ur-Lord need no longer stay in the tower." He paused and looked about him, giving everyone a chance to speak. Then he turned and left the Close. Osondrea followed him, and after giving Covenant another formal salute, Mhoram also departed.

  Numbly, Covenant moved behind Bannor up through the high passages and stairways until they reached his new quarters. The Bloodguard ushered him into a suite of rooms. They were high-ceilinged, lit by reflected sunlight through several broad windows, abundantly supplied with food and springwine, and unadorned. When Bannor had left, Covenant looked out one of the windows, and found that his rooms were perched in the north wall of Revelstone, with a view of the rough plains and the northwardcurving cliff of the plateau. The sun was overhead, but a bit south of the Keep, so that the windows were in shadow.

  He left the window, moved to the tray of food, and ate a light meal. Then he poured out a flask of springwine, which he carried into the bedroom. There he found one orieled window. It had an air of privacy, of peace.

  Where did he go from here? He did not need to be self-wise or prophetic to know that he could not remain in Revelstone. He was too vulnerable here.

  He sat down in the stone alcove to brood over the Land below and wonder what he had done to himself.

  FIFTEEN: The Great Challenge

  THAT night, when Bannor entered the suite to call Thomas Covenant to the evening meeting of the Lords, he found Covenant still sitting within the oriel of his bedroom window. By the light of Bannor's torch, Covenant appeared gaunt and spectral, as if half seen through shadows. The sockets of his eyes were dark with exhausted emotion; his lips were gray, bloodless; and the skin of his forehead had an ashen undertone. He held his arms across his chest as if he were trying to comfort a pain in his heartwatched the plains as if he were waiting for moonrise. Then he noticed the Bloodguard, and his lips pulled back, bared his teeth.

  "You still don't trust me," he said in a spent voice.

  Bannor shrugged. "We are the Bloodguard. We have no use for white gold."

  "No use?"

  "It is a knowledge-a weapon. We have no use for weapons."

  "No use?" Covenant repeated dully. "How do you defend the Lords without weapons?"

  "We"-Bannor paused as if searching the language of the Land for a word to match his thought-"suffice."

  Covenant brooded for a moment, then swung himself out of the oriel. Standing in front of Bannor, he said softly, "Bravo." Then he picked up his staff and kit the rooms.

  This time, he paid more attention to the route Bannor chose, and did not lose his sense of direction.

  Eventually, he might be able to dispense with Bannor's guidance. When they reached the huge wooden doors of the Close, they met Foamfollower and Korik. The Giant greeted Covenant with a salute and a broad grin, but when he spoke his voice was serious. "Stone and Sea, ur-Lord Covenant! I am glad you did not choose to make me wrong. Perhaps I do not comprehend all your dilemma. But I believe you have taken the better risk-for the sake of all the Land."

  "You're a fine one to talk," replied Covenant wanly. His sarcasm was a defensive reflex; he had lost so much other armor. "How long have you Giants been lost? I don't think you would know a good risk if it kicked you."

  Foamfollower chuckled. "Bravely said, my friend. It may be that the Giants are not good advisers-all our years notwithstanding. Still you have lightened my fear for the Land."

  Grimacing uselessly, Covenant went on into the Close.

  The council chamber was as brightly lit and acoustically perfect as before, but the number of people in it had changed. Tamarantha and Variol were absent, and scattered through the gallery were a number of spectators rhadhamaerl, lillianrill, warriors, Lorewardens. Bloodguard sat behind Mhoram and Osondrea; and Tuvor, Garth, Birinair, and Tohrm were in their places behind the High Lord.

  Foamfollower took his former seat, gesturing Covenant into a chair near him at the Lords' table. Behind them, Bannor and Korik sat down in the lower tier of the gallery. The spectators fell silent almost at once; even the rustle of their clothing grew still. Shortly, everyone was waiting for the High Lord to begin.

  Prothall sat as if wandering in thought for some time before he climbed tiredly to his feet. He held himself up by leaning on his staff, and when he spoke his voice rattled agedly in his chest. But he went without omission through the ceremonies of honoring Foamfollower and Covenant. The Giant responded with a gaiety which disguised the effort he made to be concise. But Covenant rejected the formality with a scowl and a shake of his head.

  When he was done, Prothall said without meeting the eyes of his fellow Lords, "There is a custom among the new Lords-a custom which began in the days of High Lord Vailant, a hundred years ago. It is this: when a High Lord doubts his ability to meet the needs of the Land, he may come to the Council and surrender his High Lordship. Then any Lord who so chooses may claim the place for himself." With an effort, Prothall continued firmly, "I now surrender my leadership. Rock and root, the trial of these times is too great for me. Ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, you are permitted to claim the High Lordship if you wish."

  Covenant held Prothall's eyes, trying to measure the High Lord's intentions. But he could find no duplicity in Prothall's offer. Softly, he replied, "You know I don't want it."

  "Yet I ask you to accept it. You bear the white gold."

  "Forget it," Covenant said. "It isn't that easy."

  After a moment, Prothall nodded slowly. "I see." He turned to the other Lords. "Do you claim the High Lordship?"

  "You are the High Lord," Mhoram averred. And Osondrea added, "Who else? Do not waste more time in foolishness."

  "Very well." Prothall squared his shoulders. "The trial and the doom of this time are on my head. I am High Lord Prothall, and by the consent of the Council my will prevails. Let none fear to follow me, or blame mother if my choices fail."

  An involuntary twitch passed across Covenant's face, but he said nothing; and shortly Prothall sat sown, saying, "Now let us consider what we must do.

  In silence the Lords communed mentally with each other. Then Os
ondrea turned to Foamfollower. 'Rockbrother, it is said, `When many matters press you, consider friendship first.' For the sake of your people you should return to Seareach as swiftly

  as may be. The Giants must be told all that has transpired here. But I judge that the waterway of Andelain will no longer be safe for you. We will provide an escort to accompany you through Grimmerdhore Forest and the North Plains until you are past Landsdrop and Sarangrave Flat."

  "Thank you, my Lords," replied Foamfollower formally, "but that will not be needed. I have given some thought myself to this matter. In their wandering, my people learned a saying from the Bhrathair: `He who waits for the sword to fall upon his neck will surely lose his head.' I believe that the best service which I can do for my people is to assist whatever course you undertake. Please permit me to join you."

  High Lord Prothall smiled and bowed his head in acknowledgement. "My heart hoped for this. Be welcome in our trial. Peril or plight, the Giants of Seareach strengthen us, and we cannot sing our gratitude enough. But your people must not be left unwarned. We will send other messengers."

  Foamfollower bowed in turn, and then Lord Osondrea resumed by calling on Warmark Garth.

  Garth stood and reported, "Lord, I have done as you requested. Furls Fire now burns atop Revelstone. All who see it will warn their folk, and will spread the warning of war south and east and north. By morning, all who live north of the Soulsease and west of Grimmerdhore will be forearmed, and those who live near the river will send runners into the Center Plains. Beyond that, the warning will carry more slowly.

  "I have sent scouts in relays toward Grimmerdhore and Andelain. But six days will pass before we receive clear word of the Forest. And though you did not request it, I have begun preparations for a siege. In all, one thousand three hundred of my warriors are now at work. Twenty Eoman remain ready."

  "That is well," said Osondrea. "The warning which must be taken to Seareach we entrust to you. Send as many warriors as you deem necessary to ensure the embassy."