Thomas Covenant 02: The Illearth War

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  She went on as if she had not heard him. “He shielded my heart from unjust demands. He taught me that the anguishes and furies of my parents and their parents need not wrack or enrage me—that I was neither the cause nor the cure of their pain. He taught me that my life is my own—that I could share in the care and consolation of wounds without sharing the wounds, without striving to be the master of lives other than my own. He taught me this—he who gave his own life to Lena my mother.

  “He abhors you, Thomas Covenant. And yet without him as my father I also would abhor you.”

  “Are you through?” Covenant grated through the clench of his teeth. “How much more do you think I can stand?”

  She did not answer aloud. Instead she turned toward him. Tears streaked her cheeks. She was silhouetted against the darkening vista of Trothgard, as she stepped up to him, slipped her arms about his neck, and kissed him.

  He gasped, and her breath was snatched into his lungs. He was stunned. A black mist filled his sight as her lips caressed his.

  Then for a moment he lost control. He repulsed her as if her breath carried infection. Crying, “Bastard!” he swung, backhanded her face with all his force.

  The blow staggered her.

  He pounced after her. His fingers clawed her blanket, tore it from her shoulders.

  But his violence did not daunt her. She caught her balance, did not flinch or recoil. She made no effort to cover herself. With her head high, she held herself erect and calm; naked, she stood before him as if she were invulnerable.

  It was Covenant who flinched. He quailed away from her as if she appalled him. “Haven’t I committed enough crimes?” he panted hoarsely. “Aren’t you satisfied?”

  Her answer seemed to spring clean and clear out of the strange otherness of her gaze. “You cannot ravish me, Thomas Covenant. There is no crime here. I am willing. I have chosen you.”

  “Don’t!” he groaned. “Don’t say that!” He flung his arms about his chest as if to conceal a hole in his armor. “You’re just trying to give me gifts again. You’re trying to bribe me.”

  “No. I have chosen you. I wish to share life with you.”

  “Don’t!” he repeated. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Don’t you understand how desperately I—I—?”

  But he could not say the words, need you. He choked on them. He wanted her, wanted what she offered him more than anything. But he could not say it. A passion more fundamental than desire restrained him.

  She made no move toward him, but her voice reached out. “How can my love harm you?”

  “Hellfire!” In frustration, he spread his arms wide like a man baring an ugly secret. “I’m a leper! Don’t you see that?” But he knew immediately that she did not see, could not see because she lacked the knowledge or the bitterness to perceive the thing he called leprosy. He hurried to try to explain before she stepped closer to him and he was lost. “Look. Look!” He pointed at his chest with one accusing finger. “Don’t you understand what I’m afraid of? Don’t you comprehend the danger here? I’m afraid I’ll become another Kevin! First I’ll start loving you, and then I’ll learn how to use the wild magic or whatever, and then Foul will trap me into despair, and then I’ll be destroyed. Everything will be destroyed. That’s been his plan all along. Once I start loving you or the Land or anything, he can just sit back and laugh! Bloody hell, Elena! Don’t you see it?”

  Now she moved. When she was within arm’s reach, she stopped, and stretched out her hand. With the tips of her fingers, she touched his forehead as if to smooth away the darkness there. “Ah, Thomas Covenant,” she breathed gently, “I cannot bear to see you frown so. Do not fear, beloved. You will not suffer Kevin Landwaster’s fate. I will preserve you.”

  At her touch, something within him broke. The pure tenderness of her gesture overcame him. But it was not his restraint which broke; it was his frustration. An answering tenderness washed through him. He could see her mother in her, and at the sight he suddenly perceived that it was not anger which made him violent toward her, not anger which so darkened his love, but rather grief and self-despite. The hurt he had done her mother was only a complex way of hurting himself—an expression of his leprosy. He did not have to repeat that act.

  It was all impossible, everything was impossible, she did not even exist. But at that moment he did not care. She was his daughter. Tenderly he stooped, retrieved her blanket, wrapped it around her shoulders. Tenderly he held her face in his hands, touched her sweet face with the impossible aliveness of his fingers. He stroked away the salt pain of her tears with his thumbs, and kissed her forehead tenderly.

  TWENTY-TWO: Anundivian Yajña

  The next morning, they left Trothgard, and rode into the unfamiliar terrain of the mountains. Half a league into the range, Amok brought them to a bridge of native stone which spanned the narrowing river-gorge of the Rill. To ameliorate his own dread of heights as well as to steady his mount, Covenant led his horse across. The bridge was wide, and the Bloodguard bracketed him with their Ranyhyn; he had no difficulty.

  From there, Amok guided the High Lord’s party up into the recesses of the peaks.

  Beyond the foothills, his path became abruptly demanding—precipitous, rugged, and slow. He was reduced to a more careful pace as he led the riders along valleys as littered and wracked as wrecks—up treacherous slides and scree falls which lay against cliffs and cola and coombs as if regurgitated out of the mountain gut-rock—down ledges which traversed weathered stone fronts like scars. But he left no doubt that he knew his way. Time and again he walked directly to the only possible exit from a closed valley, or found the only horse-worthy trail through a rockfall, or trotted without hesitation into a crevice which bypassed a blank peak. Through the rough-hewn bulk and jumble of the mountains, he led the High Lord with the obliqueness of a man threading an accustomed maze.

  For the first day or so, his goal seemed to be simply to gain elevation. He took the riders scrambling upward until the cold appeared to pour down on them from the ice tips of the tallest peaks. Thinner air gave Covenant visions of scaling some inaccessible and remorseless mountain, and he accepted a thick half-robe from Bannor with a shiver which was not caused by the chill alone.

  But then Amok changed directions. As if he were finally satisfied by the icy air and the pitch of the mountainscapes, he sought no more altitude. Instead, he began to follow the private amazement of his trail southward. Rather than plunging deeper into the Westron Mountains, he moved parallel to their eastern borders. By day, he guided his companions along his unmarked way, and at night he left them in sheltered glens and wombs and gorges, where there were unexpected patches of grass for the mounts, to deal as they saw fit with the exhilarating or cruel cold. He did not seem to feel the cold himself. With his thin apparel fluttering against his limbs, he strode ahead in unwearied cheerfulness, as if he ware impervious to fatigue and ice. Often he had to hold himself back so that the Ranyhyn and Covenant’s mustang could keep pace with him.

  The two Bloodguard were like him—unaffected by cold or altitude. But they were Haruchai, born to these mountains. Their nostrils distended at the vapory breath of dawn or dusk. Their eyes roamed searchingly over the sunward crags, the valleys occasionally bedizened with azure terns, the hoary glaciers crouching in the highest cots, the snow-fed streams. Though they wore nothing but short robes, they never shivered or gasped at the cold. Their wide foreheads and flat cheeks and confident poise betrayed no heart upsurge, no visceral excitement. Yet there was something clear and passionate in their alacrity as they watched over Elena and Covenant and Amok.

  Elena and Covenant were not so immune to the cold. Their susceptibility clung to them, made them eager for each new day’s progress toward warmer southern air. But their blankets and extra robes were warm. The High Lord did not appear to suffer. And as long as she did not suffer, Covenant felt no pain. Discomfort he could ignore. He was more at peace than he had been for a long time.

  Since t
hey had left Trothgard—since he had made the discovery which enabled him to love her without despising himself—he had put everything else out of his mind and concentrated on his daughter. Lord Foul, the Warward, even this quest itself, were insubstantial to him. He watched Elena, listened to her, felt her presence at all times. When she was in the mood to talk, he questioned her readily, and when she was not he gave her silence. And in every mood he was grateful to her, poignantly moved by the offer she had made—the offer he had refused.

  He could not help being conscious of the fact that she was not equally content. She had not made her offer lightly, and seemed unwilling to understand his refusal. But the sorrow of having given her pain only sharpened his attentiveness toward her. He concentrated on her as only a man deeply familiar with loneliness could. And she was not blind to this. After the first few days of their mountain trek, she again relaxed in his company, and her smiles expressed a frankness of affection which she had not permitted herself before. Then he felt that he was in harmony with her, and he traveled with her gladly. At times he chirruped to his horse as if he enjoyed riding it.

  But in the days that followed, a change slowly came over her—a change that had nothing to do with him. As time passed—as they journeyed nearer to the secret location of the Seventh Ward—she became increasingly occupied by the purpose of her quest. She questioned Amok more often, interrogated him more tensely. At times, Covenant could see in the elsewhere stare of her eyes that she was thinking of the war—a duty from which she had turned aside—and there were occasional flashes of urgency in her voice as she strove to ask the questions that would unlock Amok’s mysterious knowledge.

  This was a burden that Covenant could not help her bear. He knew none of the crucial facts himself. The days passed; the moon expanded to its full, then declined toward its last quarter, but she made no progress. Finally his desire to assist her in some way led him to speak to Bannor.

  In a curious way, he felt unsafe with the Bloodguard—not physically, but emotionally. There was a tension of disparity between himself and Bannor. The Haruchai’s stony gaze had the magisterial air of a man who did not deign to utter his judgment of his companions. And Covenant had other reasons to feel uncomfortable with Bannor. More than once, he had made Bannor bear the brunt of his own bootless outrage. But he had nowhere else to turn. He was entirely useless to Elena.

  Since his days in Revelstone, he had been alert to a fine shade of discrepancy in the Bloodguard’s attitude toward Amok—a discrepancy which had been verified but not explained in Revelwood. However, he did not know how to approach the subject. Extracting information from Bannor was difficult; the Bloodguard’s habitual reserve baffled inquiry. And Covenant was determined to say nothing which might sound like an offense to Bannor’s integrity. Bannor had already proved his fidelity in the Wightwarrens under Mount Thunder.

  Covenant began by trying to find out why the Bloodguard had seen fit to send only Bannor and Morin to protect the High Lord on her quest. He was acutely aware of his infacility as he remarked, “I gather you don’t think we’re in any great danger on this trip.”

  “Danger, ur-Lord?” The repressed lilt of Bannor’s pronunciation seemed to imply that anyone protected by the Bloodguard did not need to think of danger.

  “Danger,” Covenant repeated with a touch of his old asperity. “It’s a common word these days”

  Bannor considered for a moment, then said, “These are mountains. There is always danger.”

  “Such as?”

  “Rocks may fall. Storms may come. Tigers roam these low heights. Great eagles hunt here. Mountains”—Covenant seemed to hear a hint of satisfaction in Bannor’s tone—“are perilous.”

  “Then why—Bannor, I would really like to know why there are only two of your Bloodguard here.”

  “Is there need for more?”

  “If we’re attacked—by tigers, or whatever? Or what if there’s an avalanche? Are two of you enough?”

  “We know mountains,” Bannor replied flatly. “We suffice.”

  This assertion was not one that Covenant could contradict. He made an effort to approach what he wanted to know in another way, though the attempt took him onto sensitive ground—terrain he would rather have avoided. “Bannor, I feel as if I’m slowly getting to know you Bloodguard. I can’t claim that I understand—but I can at least recognize your devotion. I know what it looks like. Now I get the feeling that something is going on here—something—inconsistent. Something I don’t recognize.

  “Here we are climbing through the mountains, where anything could happen. We’re following Amok who knows where, even though we’ve got next to no idea what he’s doing, never mind why he’s doing it. And you’re satisfied that the High Lord is safe when she’s only got two Bloodguard to protect her. Didn’t you learn anything from Kevin?”

  “We are the Bloodguard,” answered Bannor stolidly. “She is safe—as safe as may be.”

  “Safe?” Covenant protested.

  “A score or a hundred score Bloodguard would not make her more safe.”

  “I admire your confidence.”

  Covenant winced at his own sarcasm, paused for a moment to reconsider his questions. Then he lowered his head as if he meant to batter Bannor’s resistance down with his forehead, and said bluntly, “Do you trust Amok?”

  “Trust him, ur-Lord?” Bannor’s tone hinted that the question was inane in some way. “He has not led us into hazard. He has chosen a good way through the mountains. The High Lord elects to follow him. We do not ask for more.”

  Still Covenant felt the lurking presence of something unexplained. “I tell you, it doesn’t fit,” he rasped in irritation. “Listen. It’s a little late in the day for these inconsistencies. I’ve sort of given up—they don’t do me any good anymore. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather hear something that makes sense.

  “Bannor, you—Bear with me. I can’t help noticing it. First there was something I don’t understand, something—out of pitch—about the way you Bloodguard reacted to Amok when he came to Revelstone. You—I don’t know what it was. Anyway, at Revelwood you didn’t exactly jump to help Troy when he caught Amok. And after that—only two Bloodguard! Bannor, it doesn’t make sense.”

  Bannor was unmoved. “She is the High Lord. She holds the Staff of Law. She is easily defended.”

  That answer foiled Covenant. It did not satisfy him, but he could think of no way around it. He did not know what he was groping for. His intuition told him that his questions were significant, but he could not articulate or justify them in any utile way. And he reacted to Bannor’s trenchant blankness as if it were some kind of touchstone, a paradoxically private and unavoidable criterion of rectitude. Bannor made him aware that there was something not altogether honest about his own accompaniment of the High Lord.

  So he withdrew from Bannor, returned his attention to Elena. She had had no better luck with Amok, and her air of escape as she turned toward Covenant matched his. They rode on together, hiding their various anxieties behind light talk of mutual commiseration.

  Then during the eleventh evening of their sojourn in the mountains, she expressed an opinion to him. As if the guess were hazardous, she said, “Amok leads us to Melenkurion Skyweir. The Seventh Ward is hidden there.” And the next day—the eighteenth since they had left Revelwood, and the twenty-fifth since the War Council of the Lords—the rhythm of their trek was broken.

  The day dawned cold and dull, as if the sunlight were clogged with gray cerements. A troubled smell shrouded the air. Torn fragments of wind flapped back and forth across the camp as Elena and Covenant ate their breakfast, and far away they could hear a flat, detonating sound like the retort of balked canvas on unlashed spars. Covenant predicted a storm. But the First Mark shook his head in flat denial, and Elena said, “This is not the weather of storms.” She glanced warily up at the peaks as she spoke. “There is pain in the air. The Earth is afflicted.”

  “What’s happening?” A
burst of wind scattered Covenant’s voice, and he had to repeat his question at a shout to make himself heard. “Is Foul going to hit us here?”

  The wind shifted and lapsed; she was able to answer normally. “Some ill has been performed. The Earth has been assaulted. We feel its revulsion. But the distance is very great, and time has passed. I feel no peril directed toward us. Perhaps the Despiser does not know what we do.” In the next breath, her voice hardened. “But he has used the Illearth Stone. Smell the air! There has been malice at work in the Land.”

  Covenant began to sense what she meant. Whatever amassed these clouds and roiled this wind was not the impassive natural violence of a storm. The air seemed to carry inaudible shrieks and hints of rot, as if it were blowing through the aftermath of an atrocity. And on a subliminal level, almost indiscernible, the high bluff crags seemed to be shuddering.

  The atmosphere made him feel a need for haste. But though her face was set in grim lines, the High Lord did not hurry. She finished her meal, then carefully packed the food and graveling away before calling to Myrha. When she mounted, she summoned Amok.

  He appeared before her almost at once, and gave her a cheerful bow. After acknowledging him with a nod, she asked him if he could explain the ill in the air.

  He shook his head, and said, “High Lord, I am no oracle.” But his eyes revealed his sensitivity to the atmosphere; they were bright, and a sharp gleam lurking behind them showed for the first time that he was capable of anger. A moment later, however, he turned his face away, as if he did not wish to expose any private part of himself. With a flourishing gesture, he beckoned for the High Lord to follow him.

  Covenant swung into his mount’s clingor saddle, and tried to ignore the brooding ambience around him. But he could not resist the impression that the ground under him was quivering. Despite all his recent experience, he was still not a confident rider—he could not shed his nagging distrust of horses—and he worried that he might fulfill the prophecy of his height fear by falling off his mount.