Lord Foul's Bane

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  In the white revelations of the lightning, Prothall's flare appeared dim and frail, and thunder detonated hugely over it as if exploding at the touch of folly. Covenant crouched low on Dura's back, flinched away from the lightning as if the sky were stone which the thunder shattered. He could not see the Cords, did not know what was happening around him; he was constantly afraid that Dura's next step would take him over the cliff. He clenched his eyes to Prothall's flame as if it could keep him from being lost.

  The skill and simple toughness of the Ramen pre-` served the company, kept it moving toward Mount Thunder. But the journey seemed like wandering in the collapse of the heavens. The riders could only be sure of their direction because they were always forcing their way into the maw of the storm. The wind flailed the rain at their faces until their eyes felt lacerated and their cheeks shredded. And the cold drenching stiffened their limbs, paralyzed them slowly like the rigor of death. But they went on as if they were trying to beat down a wall of stone with their foreheads.

  For two full days, they pushed onward-felt themselves crumbling under the onslaught of the rain. But they knew neither day nor night, knew nothing but one continuous, pummeling, dark, savage, implacable storm. They rode until they were exhausted-rested on their feet knee-deep in water and mud, gripping the reins of their horses-ate sopping morsels of food half warmed by lillianrill fires which Birinair struggled to

  keep half alive-counted themselves to be sure no one had been lost-and rode again until they were forced by exhaustion to stop again. At times, they felt that Prothall's wan blue flame alone sustained them. Then Lord Mhoram moved among the company. In the lurid lightning, his face appeared awash with water like a foundering wreck; but he went to each Quester, shouted through the howl of wind and rain, the devastating thunder, "Drool-storm-for us! But he mistaken! Main force-passes-west! Take heard Augurs-for us!"

  Covenant was too worn and cold to respond. But he heard the generous courage behind Mhoram's words. When the company started forward again, he squinted ahead toward Prothall's flame as if he were peering into a mystery.

  The struggle went on, prolonged itself far beyond the point where it felt unendurable. In time, endurance itself became abstract-a mere concept, too impalpable to carry conviction. The lash and riot of the storm reduced the riders to raw, quivering flesh hardly able to cling to their mounts. But Prothall's fire burned on. At each new flash and blast, Covenant reeled in his seat. He wanted nothing in life but a chance to lie down in the mud. But Prothall's fire burned on. It was like a manacle, emprisoning the riders, dragging them forward. In the imminent madness of the torrents, Covenant gritted his gaze as if that manacle were precious to him.

  Then they passed the boundary. It was as abrupt as if the wall against which they had thrown themselves like usurped titans had suddenly fallen into mud. Within ten stumbling heartbeats, the end of the storm blew over them, and they stood gasping in a sun-bright noon. They could hear the tumult rushing blindly away. Around them were the remains of the deluge-broken pools and streams and fens, thick mud like wreckage on the battle plain. And before them stood the great ravaged head of Mount Thunder: Gravin Threndor, Peak of the Fire-Lions.

  For a long moment, it held them like an aegis of silence-grim, grave and august, like an outcropping of the Earth's heart. The Peak was north and slightly west of them. Taller than Kevin's Watch above the Upper Land, it seemed to kneel on the edge of the Sarangrave, with its elbows braced on the plateau and its head high over the cliff, fronting the sky in a strange attitude of pride and prayer; and it rose twelve thousand feet over the Defiles Course, which flowed eastward from its feet. Its sides from its crumpled foothills to the raw rock of its crown were bare, not cloaked or defended from storms, snows, besieging time by any trees or grasses, but instead wearing sheer, fragmented cliffs like facets, some as black as obsidian and others as gray as the ash of a granite fire-as if the stone of the Mount were too thick, too charged with power, to bear any gentle kind of life.

  There, deep in the hulky chest of the mountain, was the destination of the Quest: Kiril Threndor, Heart of Thunder.

  They were still ten leagues from the Peak, but the distance was deceptive. Already that scarred visage dominated the northern horizon; it confronted them over the rift of Landsdrop like an irrefusable demand. Mount Thunder! There Berek Halfhand had found his great revelation. There the Quest for the Staff of Law hoped to regain the future of the Land. And there Thomas Covenant sought release from the impossibility of his dreams. The company stared at the upraised rock as if it searched their hearts, asked them questions which they could not answer.

  Then Quaan grinned fiercely, and said, "At least now we have been washed clean enough for such work."

  That incongruity cracked the trance which held the riders. Several of the warriors burst into laughter as if recoiling from the strain of the past two days, and most of the others chuckled, daring Drool or any enemy to believe that the storm had weakened them. Though nearly prostrated by the exertion of finding a path through the torrents on foot, the Ramen laughed as well, sharing a humor they did not fully understand.

  Only Foamfollower did not respond. His eyes were fixed on Mount Thunder, and his brows overhung his gaze as if shielding it from something too bright or hot to be beheld directly.

  The Questers found a relatively dry hillock on which to rest and eat, and feed their mounts; and Foamfollower went with them absently. While the company made itself as comfortable as possible for a time, he stood apart and gazed at the mountain as if he were reading secrets in its scored crevices and cliffs. Softly he sang to himself:

  Now we are Unhomed,

  bereft of root and kith and kin.

  From other mysteries of delight,

  we set our sails to resail our track;

  but the winds of life blew not the way we chose,

  and the land beyond the Sea was lost.

  High Lord Prothall let the company rest for as long as he dared in the open plain. Then he moved on again for the remainder of the afternoon, clinging to the edge of Landsdrop as if it were his only hope. Before the storm, Covenant had learned that the sole known entrance to the catacombs of Mount Thunder was through the western chasm of the Soulsease-Treacher's Gorge, the rocky maw which swallowed the river, only to spit it out again eastward on the Lower Land, transmogrified by hidden turbulent depths into the Defiles Course, a stream gray with the sludge and waste of the Wightwarrens. So Prothall's hope lay in his southeastern approach. He believed that by reaching Mount Thunder on the south and moving toward Treacher's Gorge from the east, the company could arrive unseen and unexpected at the Gorge's western exposure. But he took no unnecessary risks. Gravin Threndor stood perilously large against the sky, and seemed already to lean looming toward the company as if the Peak itself were bent to the shape of Drool's malice. He urged the tired Ramen to their best cunning in choosing a way along Landsdrop; and he kept the riders moving until after the sun had set.

  But all the time he rode slumped agedly in his saddle, with his head bowed as if he were readying his neck for the stroke of an ax. He seemed to have spent all his strength in pulling his companions through the storm. Whenever he spoke, his long years rattled in his throat.

  The next morning, the sun came up like a wound into ashen skies. Gray clouds overhung the earth, and a shuddering wind fell like a groan from the slopes of Mount Thunder. Across the wasteland, the pools of rainwater began to stagnate, as if the ground refused to drink the moisture, leaving it to rot instead. And as they prepared to ride, the Questers heard a low rumble like the march of drums- deep in the rock. They could feel the throb in their feet, in their knee joints.

  It was the beat of mustering war.

  The High Lord answered as if it were a challenge. "Melenkurion!" he called clearly. "Arise, champions of the Land! I hear the drums of the Earth! This is the great work of our time!" He swung onto his horse with his blue robe fluttering.

  Warhaft Quaan responded with
a cheer, "Hail, High Lord Prothall! We are proud to follow!"

  Prothall's shoulders squared. His horse lifted its ears, raised its head, took a few prancing steps as grandly as a Ranyhyn. The Ranyhyn nickered humorously at the sight, and the company rode after Prothall boldly, as if the spirits of the ancient Lords were in them.

  They made their way to the slopes of Mount Thunder through the constant buried rumble of the drums. As they found a path across the thickening rubble which surrounded the mountain, the booming subterreanean call accompanied them like an exhalation of Despite. But when they started up the first battered sides of the Peak, they forgot the drums; they had to concentrate on the climb. The foothills were like a gnarled stone mantle which Mount Thunder had shrugged from its shoulders in ages long past, and the way, westward over the slopes was hard. Time and again, the riders were forced to dismount to lead their mounts down tricky hills or over gray piles of tumbled, ashen rock. The difficulty of the terrain made their progress slow, despite all the Ramen could do to search out the easiest trails. The Peak seemed to lean gravely

  over them as if watching their small struggles. And down onto them from the towering cliffs came a chilling wind, as cold as winter.

  At noon, Prothall halted in a deep gully which ran down the mountainside like a cut. There the company rested and ate. When they were not moving, they could hear the drums clearly, and the cold wind seemed to pounce on them from the cliffs above. They sat in the straight light of the sun and shivered-some at the cold, others at the drums.

  During the halt, Mhoram came over to Covenant and suggested that they climb a way up the gully together. Covenant nodded; he was glad to keep himself busy. He followed the Lord up the cut's contorted spine until they reached a break in its west wall. Mhoram entered the break; and when Covenant stepped in behind the Lord, he got a broad, sudden view of Andelain.

  From the altitude of the break between the stone walls he felt that he was looking down over Andelain from a window in the side of Mount Thunder. The Hills lay richly over all the western horizon, and their beauty took his breath away. He stared hungrily with a feeling of stasis, of perfect pause in his chest, like a quick grip of eternity. The lush, clear health of Andelain shone like a country of stars despite the gray skies and the dull battle-roll. He felt obscurely unwilling to breathe, to break the trance, but after a moment his lungs began to hurt for air.

  "Here is the Land," Mhoram whispered. "Grim, powerful Mount Thunder above us. The darkest banes and secrets of the Earth in the catacombs beneath our feet. The battleground behind. Sarangrave Flat below. And there-priceless Andelain, the beauty of life. Yes. This is the heart of the Land." He stood reverently, as if he felt himself to be in an august presence.

  Covenant looked at him. "So you brought me up here to convince me that this is worth fighting for." His mouth twisted on the bitter taste of shame. "You want something from me-some declaration of allegiance. Before you have to face Drool." The Cavewights he had slain lay hard and cold in his memory.

  "Of course," the Lord replied. "But it is the Land itself which asks for your allegiance." Then he said with sudden intensity, "Behold, Thomas Covenant. Use your eyes. Look upon it all. Look and listen hear the drums. And hear me. This is the heart of the Land. It is not the home of the Despiser. He has no place here. Oh, he desires the power of the banes, but his home is in Foul's Creche-not here. He has not depth or sternness or beauty enough for this place, and when he works here it is through ur-viles or Cavewights. Do you see?"

  "I see." Covenant met the Lord's gaze flatly. "I've already made my bargain-my `peace,' if you want to call it that. I'm not going to do any more killing."

  "Your `peace'?" Mhoram echoed in a complex tone. Slowly, the danger dimmed in his eyes. "Well, you must pardon me. In times of trouble, some Lords behave strangely." He passed Covenant and started back down the gully.

  Covenant remained in the window for a moment, watching Mhoram go. He had not missed the Lord's oblique reference to Kevin; but he wondered what kinship Mhoram saw between himself and the Landwaster. Did the Lord believe himself capable of that kind of despair?

  Muttering silently, Covenant returned to the company. He saw a measuring look in the eyes of the warriors; they were trying to assess what had occurred between him and Lord Mhoram. But he did not care what portents they read into him. When the company moved on, he led Dura up the side of the gully, blank to the shifting shale which more than once dropped him to his hands and knees, scratching and bruising him dangerously. He was thinking about the Celebration of Spring, about the battle of Soaring Woodhelven, about children and Llaura and Pietten and Atiaran and the nameless Unfettered One and Lena and Triock and the warrior who had died defending him-thinking, and striving to tell himself that his bargain was secure, that he was not angry enough to risk fighting again.

  That afternoon, the company struggled on over the arduous ground, drawing slowly higher as they worked westward. They caught no glimpses of their destination. Even when the sun fell low in the sky, and the roar of waters became a distinct accompaniment to the buried beat of the drums, they were still not able to see the Gorge. But then they entered a sheer, sheltered ravine in the mountainside. From this ravine a rift too narrow for the horses angled away into the rock, and through it they could hear a snarling current. In the ravine the riders left their mounts under the care of the Cords. They went ahead on foot down the rift as it curved into the mountain and then broke out of the cliff no more than a hundred feet directly above Treacher's Gorge.

  They no longer heard the drums; the tumult of the river smothered every sound but their own half-shouts. The walls of the chasm were high and sheer, blocking the horizon on either side. But through the spray that covered them like a mist, they could see the Gorge itself-the tight rock channel constricting the river until it appeared to scream, and the wild, white, sunset flame-plumed water thrashing as if it fought against its own frantic rush. From nearly a league away to the west,, the river came writhing down the Gorge, and sped below the company into the guts of the mountain as if sucked into an abyss. Above the Gorge, the setting sun hung near the horizon like a ball of blood in the leaden sky; and the light gave a shade of fire to the few hardy trees that clung to the rims of the chasm as if rooted by duty. But within Treacher's Gorge was nothing but spray and sheer stone walls and tortured waters.

  The roar inundated Covenant's ears, and the mist wet rock seemed to slip under his feet. For an instant, the cliffs reeled; he could feel the maw of Mount Thunder gaping for him. Then he snatched himself back into the rift, stood with his back pressed against the rock, hugged his chest and fought not to gasp.

  There was activity around him. He heard shouts of surprise and fear from the warriors at the end of the rift, heard Foamfollower's strangled howl. But he did not move. He clenched himself against the rock in the mist and roar of the river until his knees steadied, and the scream of slippage eased in his feet. Only then did he go to find out what caused the distress of his companions. He kept one hand braced on the wall and moved the other from shoulder to shoulder among the company as he went forward.

  Between Covenant and the cliff, Foamfollower struggled. Two Bloodguard clung to his arms, and he battered them against the sides of the rift, hissing rapaciously, "Release me! Release-! I want them!" As if he wished to leap down into the Gorge.

  "No!" Abruptly, Prothall stood before the Giant. The backlight of the sunset dimmed his face as he stood silhouetted against the glow with his arms wide and his staff held high. He was old, and only half the Giant's size. But the orangered fire seemed to expand him, make him taller, more full of authority. "Rockbrother! Master yourself! By the Seven! Do you rave?"

  At that, Foamfollower threw off the Bloodguard. He caught the front of Prothall's robe, heaved the High Lord into the air, pinned him against the wall. Into his face, the Giant wheezed as if he were choking with rage, "Rave? Do you accuse me?"

  The Bloodguard sprang toward Foamfollower. But a shout f
rom Mhoram stopped them. Prothall hung clamped against the stone like a handful of old rags, but his eyes did not flinch. He repeated, "Do you rave?"

  For one horrible moment, Foamfollower held the High Lord as if he meant to murder him with one huge squeeze of his fist. Covenant tried to think of something to say, some way to intervene, but could not. He had no conception of what had happened to Foamfollower.

  Then from behind Covenant First Mark Tuvor said clearly, "A Raver? In one of the Seareach Giants? Impossible."

  As if impaled by Tuvor's assertion, Foamfollower broke into a convulsion of coughing. The violence of his reaction knotted his gnarled frame. He lowered Prothall, then collapsed backward, falling with a thud against the opposite wall. Slowly, his paroxysm changed into a low chuckle like the glee of hysteria.

  Heard through the groaning of the river, that sound made Covenant's skin crawl like a slimy caress. He could not abide it. Driven by a need to learn what had befallen Foamfollower, he moved forward to look into the Gorge.

  There, braced now against his vertigo and the inundation of the river roar, he saw what had ignited Foamfollower. Ah, Giant! he groaned. To kill-! Below him and barely twenty feet above the level of the river was a narrow roadway like a ledge in the south wall of the Gorge. And along the roadway to the beat of unheard drums marched an army of Cavewights out of Mount Thunder. Captained by a wedge of urviles, file after file of the gangrel creatures jerked out of the mountain and tramped along the ledge with a glare of lust in their laval eyes. Thousands had already left their Wightwarrens; and behind them the files continued as if Mount Thunder were spewing all the hordes of its inhabiting vermin onto the undefended Earth.