Lord Foul's Bane

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Covenant climbed off Dura, and found a shy-bold Ramen girl no more than fifteen or sixteen years old standing before him. She had fine black hair that draped her shoulders, and soft wide brown eyes. She did not smile; she seemed awed to find herself greeting

  the Ringthane, the wielder of the white gold. Carefully, she reached out to put her flowers around his wrist.

  Their smell staggered him, and he nearly retched. The band was woven of amanibhavam. Its tang burned his nose like acid, made him so hungry that he felt about to vomit chunks of emptiness. He was helpless to stop the tears that ran from his eyes.

  With a face full of solemnity, the Winhome girl raised her hands and touched his tears as if they were precious.

  Behind him, the Ranyhyn of the Bloodguard were galloping off into the freedom of the Plains. The Cords were leading the company's horses away to be tended, and more Ramen cantered into the glade in answer to the news of the Quest's arrival. But Covenant kept his eyes on the girl, stared at her as if she were a kind of food. Finally she answered his gaze by saying, "I am Winhome Gay. Soon I will share enough knowing to join the Cords." After an instant of hesitation, she added, "I am to care for you while you guest here." When he did not respond, she said hurriedly, "Others will gladly serve if my welcome is not accepted."

  Covenant remained silent for a moment longer, clenching his useless ferocity. But then he gathered his strength for one final refusal. "I don't need anything. Don't touch me." The words hurt his throat.

  A hand touched his shoulder. He glanced around to find Foamfollower beside him. The Giant was looking down at Covenant, but he spoke to the pain of rejection in Gay's face. "Do not be sad, little Winhome," he murmured. "Covenant Ringthane tests us. He does not speak his heart."

  Gay smiled gratefully up at Foamfollower, then said with sudden sauciness, "Not so little, Giant. Your size deceives you. I have almost reached Cording."

  Her gibe appeared to take a moment to penetrate Foamfollower. Then his stiff beard twitched. Abruptly, he began to laugh. His glee mounted; it echoed off the cliff above Manhome until the mountain seemed to share his elation, and the infectious sound spread until everyone near him was laughing without knowing why. For a long moment, he threw out gales as if he were blowing debris from his soul.

  But Covenant turned away, unable to bear the loud weight of the Giant's humor. Hellfire, he growled. Hell and blood. What are you doing to me? He had made no decision, and now his capacity for self-denial seemed spent.

  So when Gay offered to guide him to his seat for the feast which the Winhomes had prepared, he followed her numbly. She took him under the ponderous overhang of the cliff to a central, clear space with a campfire burning in the middle. Most of the company had already entered Manhome. There were two other fires, and the Ramen divided the company into three groups: the Bloodguard sat around one of the fires; Quaan and his fourteen warriors around another; and in the center, the Ramen invited Prothall, Mhoram, Foamfollower, Llaura, Pietten, and Covenant to join the Manethralls. Covenant let himself be steered until he was sitting cross-legged on the smooth stone floor, across the circle from Prothall, Mhoram, and Foamfollower. Four Manethralls made places for themselves beside the Lords, and Lithe seated herself near Covenant. The rest of the circle was filled with Cords who had come in from the Plains with their Manethrall teachers.

  Most of the Winhomes bustled around cooking fires farther back in the cave, but one stood behind each guest, waiting to serve. Gay attended Covenant, and she hummed a light melody which reminded him of another song he had once heard.

  Something there is in beauty which grows in the soul of the beholder like a flower.

  Under the wood smoke and the cooking odors, he thought that he could smell Gay's clean, grassy fragrance.

  As he sat lumpishly on the stone, the last glow of the sunset waved orange and gold on the roof like an affectionate farewell. Then the sun was gone. Night spread over the Plains; campfire flames gave the only light in Manhome. The air was full of bustle and low talk like a hill breeze rich in Ranyhyn scent. But the food Covenant dreaded did not come immediately. First, some of the Cords danced...

  Three of them performed within the circle where Covenant sat. They danced around the fire with high prancing movements and sang a nickering song to the beat of complex clapping from the Winhomes. The smooth flow of their limbs, the sudden eruptions of the dance, the dark tan of their skins, made them look as if they were enacting the pulse of the Plains-dancing the pulse by making it fast enough for human eyes to see. And they repeatedly bent their bodies so that the firelight cast horselike shadows on the walls and ceiling.

  Occasionally, the dancers leaped close enough to Covenant for him to hear their song:

  Grass-grown hooves, and forehead stars; hocks and withers, earth-wood bloom: regal Ranyhyn, gallop, run we serve the Tail of the Sky, Mane of the World.

  The words and the dance made him feel that they expressed some secret knowledge, some vision that he needed to share. The feeling repelled him; he tore his eyes away from the dancers to the glowing coals of the fire. When the dance was done, he went on staring into the fire's heart with a gaze full of vague trepidations.

  Then the Winhomes brought food and drink to the circles. Using broad leaves for plates, they piled stew and wild potatoes before their guests. The meal was savory with rare herbs which the Ramen relished in their cooking, and soon the Questers were deep in the feast. For a long time the only sounds in Manhome were those of serving and eating.

  In the midst of the feast, Covenant sat like a stunted tree. He did not respond to anything Gay offered him. He stared at the fire; there was one coal in it which burned redly, like the night glow of his ring. He was doing a kind of VSE in his mind, studying his extremities from end to end; and his heart ached in the conviction that he was about to find some utterly unexpected spot of leprosy. He looked as if he were withering.

  After a time, people began to talk again. Prothall and Mhoram handed their leaf plates back to the Winhomes, and turned their attention to the Manethralls. Covenant caught glimpses of their conversation. They were discussing him the message he had brought to them, the role he played in the fate of the Land. Their physical comfort contrasted strangely with the seriousness of their words.

  Near them, Foamfollower described the plight of Llaura and Pietten to one of the Manethralls.

  Covenant scowled into the fire. He did not need to look down to see the blood change which came over his ring; he could feel the radiation of wrong from the metal. He concealed the band under his fist and trembled.

  The stone ceiling seemed to hover over him like a cruel wing of revelation, awaiting the moment of his greatest helplessness to plunge onto his exposed neck. He was abysmally hungry.

  I'm going crazy, he muttered into the flames.

  Winhome Gay urged him to eat, but he did not respond.

  Across the circle, Prothall was explaining the purpose of his Quest. The Manethralls listened uncertainly, as if they had trouble seeing the connection between evils far away and the Plains of Ra. So the High Lord told them what had been done to Andelain.

  Pietten gazed with blank unfocus out into the night, as if he were looking forward to moonrise. Beside him, Llaura spoke quietly with the Cords around her, grateful for the Ramen hospitality.

  As Foamfollower detailed the horrors which had been practiced on the two survivors of Soaring Woodhelven, his forehead knotted under the effort he made to contain his emotion.

  The fire shone like a door with an intolerable menace waiting behind it. The back of Covenant's neck was stiff with vulnerability, and his eyes stared blindly, like knotholes.

  The green stains on his robe marked him like a warning that said, Leper outcast unclean.

  He was nearing the end of his VSE. Behind him was the impossibility of believing the Land true. And before him was the impossibility of believing it false.

  Abruptly, Gay entered the circle and confronted him, with her hands on her
hips and her eyes flashing. She stood with her legs slightly apart, so that he saw the bloody coals of the fire between her thighs.

  He glanced up at her.

  "You must take food," she scolded. "Already you are half dead." Her shoulders were squared, drawing her shift tight over her breasts. She reminded him of Lena.

  Prothall was saying, "He has not told us all that occurred at the Celebration. The ravage of the Wraiths was not prevented-yet we believe he fought the urviles in some way. His companion blamed both herself and him for the ill which befell the Dance."

  Covenant trembled. Like Lena, he thought. Lena?

  Darkness pounced at him like claws of vertigo.

  Lena?

  For an instant, his vision was obscured by roaring and black waters. Then he crashed to his feet. He had done that to Lena-done that? He flung the girl aside and jumped toward the fire. Lena! Swinging his staff like an ax, he chopped at the blaze. But he could not fight off the memory, could not throw it back. The staff twisted with the force of the blow, fell from his hands. Sparks and coals shattered, flew in all directions. He had done that to her! Shaking his half-fist at Prothall, he cried, "She was wrong! I couldn't help it!"-thinking, Lena! What have I done?- "I'm a leper!"

  Around him, people sprang to their feet. Mhoram came forward quickly, stretched out a restraining hand. "Softly, Covenant," he said. "What is wrong? We are guests."

  But even while he protested, Covenant knew that Atiaran had not been wrong. He had seen himself kill at the battle of Soaring Woodhelven, and had thought in his folly that being a killer was something new for him, something unprecedented. But it was not something he had recently become; he had been that way from the beginning of the dream, from the beginning. In an intuitive leap, he saw that there was no difference between what the ur-viles had done to the Wraiths and what he had done to Lena. He had been serving Lord Foul since his first day in the Land.

  "No!" he spat as if he were boiling in acid. "No, I won't do it anymore. I'm not going to be the victim anymore. I will not be waited on by children." He shook with the ague of his rage as he cried at himself, You raped her! You stinking bloody bastard!

  He felt as weak as if the understanding of what he had done corroded his bones.

  Mhoram said intently, "Unbeliever! What is wrong?"

  "No!" Covenant repeated. "No!" He was trying to shout, but his voice sounded distant, crippled. "I will not-tolerate-this. It isn't right. I am going to survive! Do you hear me?"

  "Who are you?" Manethrall Lithe hissed through taut lips. With a quick shake of her head, a flick of her wrist, she pulled the cord from her hair and held it battle-ready.

  Prothall caught her arm. His old voice rattled with authority and supplication. "Forgive, Manethrall. This matter is beyond you. He holds the wild magic that destroys peace. We must forgive."

  "Forgive?" Covenant tried to shout. His legs failed under him, but he did not fall. Bannor held him erect from behind. "You can't forgive."

  "Do you ask to be punished?" Mhoram said incredulously. "What have you done?"

  "Ask?" Covenant struggled to recollect something. Then he found it. He knew what he had to do. "No. Call the Ranyhyn."

  "What?" snapped Lithe in indignation. And all the Ramen echoed her protest.

  "The Ranyhyn! Call them."

  "Are you mad? Have a care, Ringthane. We are the

  Ramen. We do not call-we serve. They come as they will. They are not for your calling. And they do not come at night."

  "Call, I tell you! I! Call them!"

  Something in his terrible urgency confounded her. She hesitated, stared at him in confused anger and protest and unexpected compassion, then turned on her heel and strode out of Manhome.

  Supported by Bannor, Covenant tottered out from under the oppressive weight of the mountain. The company and the Ramen trailed after him like a wake of dumbfounded outrage. Behind them, the red moon had just crested the mountain; and the distant Plains, visible beyond the foothills in front of Manhome, were already awash with crimson. The incarnadine flood seemed to untexture the earth, translate rock and soil and grass into decay and bitter blood.

  The people spread out on either side of the flat so that the open ground was lit by the campfires.

  Into the night walked Lithe, moving toward the Plains until she stood near the far edge of the glade. Covenant stopped and watched her. Unsteadily, but resolutely, he freed himself from Bannor's supportstood on his own like a wrecked galleon left by the tide, perched impossibly high on a reef. Moving woodenly, he went toward Lithe.

  Before him, the bloody vista of the moonlight lay like a dead sea, and it tugged at him as it flowed closer with each degree of the moonrise. His ring smoldered coldly. He felt that he was the lodestone. Sky and earth were alike hued scarlet, and he walked outward as if he were the pole on which the red night turnedhe and his ring the force which compelled that tide of violated night. Soon he stood in the center of the open fiat.

  A winding-sheet of silence enwrapped the onlookers.

  Ahead of him, Manethrall Lithe spread her arms as if she were beckoning the darkness toward her. Abruptly, she gave a shrill cry. "Kelenbhrabanal marushyn! Rushyn hynyn kelenkoor rillynarunal!

  Ranyhyn Kelenbhrabanal!" Then she whistled once. It echoed off the cliff like a shriek.

  For a long moment, silence choked the flat. Striding defiantly, Lithe moved back toward Manhome. As she passed Covenant, she snapped, "I have called." Then she was behind him, and he faced the siege of the moonlight alone.

  But shortly there came a rumbling of hooves. Great horses pounded the distance; the sound swelled as if the hills themselves were rolling Manhome-ward. Scores of Ranyhyn approached. Covenant locked his knees to keep himself upright. His heart felt too weak to go on beating. He was dimly conscious of the hushed suspense of the spectators.

  Then the outer edge of the flat seemed to rise up redly, and a wave of Ranyhyn broke into the opennearly a hundred chargers galloping abreast like a wall at Covenant.

  A cry of amazement and admiration came from the Ramen. Few of the oldest Manethralls had ever seen so many Ranyhyn at one time.

  And Covenant knew that he was looking at the proudest flesh of the Land. He feared that they were going to trample him.

  But the pounding wall broke away to his left, ran around him until he was completely encircled. Manes and tails tossing, forehead stars catching the firelight as they flashed past, five score Ranyhyn thundered on the turf and enclosed him. The sound of their hooves roared in his ears.

  Their circle drew tighter as they ran. Their reeling strength snatched at his fear, pulled him around with them as if he were trying to face them all at once. His heart labored painfully. He could not turn fast enough to keep up with them. The effort made him stumble, lose his balance, fall to his knees.

  But the next instant, he was erect again, with his legs planted against the vertigo of their circling, and his face contorted as if he were screaming-a cry lost in the thunder of Ranyhyn hooves. His arms spread as if they were braced against opposing walls of night.

  Slowly, tortuously, the circle came stamping and fretting to a halt. The Ranyhyn faced inward toward Covenant. Their eyes rolled, and several of them had froth on their lips. At first, he failed to comprehend their emotion.

  From the onlookers came a sudden cry: He recognized Llaura's voice. Turning, he saw Pietten running toward the horses, with Llaura struggling after him, too far behind to catch him. The child had caught everyone by surprise; they had been watching Covenant. Now Pietten reached the circle and scrambled among the frenzied feet of the Ranyhyn.

  It seemed impossible that he would not be trampled. His head was no larger than one of their hooves, and the chargers were stamping, skittering. Then Covenant saw his chance. With an instinctive leap, he snatched Pietten from under one of the horses.

  His half-unfingered hand could not retain its grip; Pietten sprawled away from him. Immediately, the child jumped to his feet. He dashe
d at Covenant and struck as hard as he could.

  "They hate you!" he raged. "Go away!"

  Moonlight fell into the flat as if it had sprung from the sides of the mountain. In the crimson glow, Pietten's little face looked like a wasteland.

  The child struggled, but Covenant lifted him off the ground, gripped him to his chest with both arms. Restraining Pietten in his hug, he looked up at the Ranyhyn.

  Now he understood. In the past, he had been too busy avoiding them to notice how they reacted to him. They were not threatening him. These great chargers were terrified-terrified of him. Their eyes shied off his face, and they scattered foam flecks about them. The muscles of their legs and chests quivered. Yet they came agonized forward. Their old role was reversed. Instead of choosing their riders, they were submitting themselves to his choice.

  On an impulse, he unwrapped his left arm from Pietten and flourished his cold red ring at one of the horses. It flinched and ducked as if he had thrust a serpent at it, but it held its ground.

  He gripped Pietten again. The child's struggles were weaker now, as if Covenant's hug slowly smothered him. But the Unbeliever clung. He stared wildly at the Ranyhyn, and wavered as if he could not regain his balance.

  But he had already made his decision. He had seen the Ranyhyn recognize his ring. Clenching Pietten to his heart like a helm, he cried, "Listen!" in a voice as hoarse as a sob. "Listen. I'll make a bargain with you. Get it right. Hellfire! Get it right. A bargain. Listen. I can't stand-I'm falling apart. Apart." He clenched Pietten. "I see-I see what's happening to you. You're afraid. You're afraid of me. You think I'm some kind of- All right. You're free. I don't choose any of you."

  The Ranyhyn watched him fearfully.

  "But you've got to do things for me. You've got to back off!" That wail almost took the last of his strength. "You-the Land-" he panted, pleaded, Let me be! "Don't ask so much." But he knew that he needed something more from them in return for his forbearance, something more than their willingness to suffer his Unbelief.

  "Listen-listen. If I need you, you had better come. So that I don't have to be a hero. Get it right." His eyes bled tears, but he was not weeping.