THE POWER THAT PRESERVES

by default

  The hope of the wild magic was lost. Covenant was gone.

  Now Mhoram understood why the Raver had laughed.

  "Mhoram?"

  "High Lord."

  "Mhoram!"

  Supplications reached toward him, asking him for strength, begging him, requiring. He ignored them. He shrugged off the hands of melding which plucked at his mind. The prophecy of his dread had come to pass. He had nothing left with which to answer supplications.

  "Ah, High Lord!"

  There were tears and despair in the appeals, but he had nothing left with which to answer.

  He was only dimly aware that he rose to his feet, returned the krill to the messenger. He wanted it removed from his sight as if it were a treacher, yet that feeling occupied only a distant portion of him. With the rest, he tightened his frail blue robe as if he were still fool enough to believe it could protect him from the cold, and walked numbly away from the battlement. The short, stiff shock of his hair, newly grown after the fire in the Close, gave him a demented aspect. People came after him, beseeching, requiring, but he kept up his wooden pace, kept ahead of them so that he would not have to see their needy faces.

  He gave no thought to where he was going until he reached a fork in the passage. There, the weight of decision almost crushed him to his knees again-left and down into the Keep, or right and out toward the upland plateau. He turned to the right because he could not bear the unintended recrimination of Revelstone-and because he was a man who already knew that he had no choice.

  When he started up the long ascending road, the people behind him slowed, let him go. He heard them whispering:

  "He goes to the Unfettered One-to the interpreter of dreams."

  But that was not where he was going; he had no questions to ask an oracle. Oracles were for people to whom ambiguous visions could make a difference, but now the only things which could make a difference to High Lord Mhoram son of Variol were things which would give him courage.

  In a stupor of dread, he climbed out into the wind which scythed across the open plateau. Above its chill ululations, he could hear battle crashing against the walls of the Keep, waves of assailants hurling themselves like breakers against a defiant and ultimately frangible cliff. But he put the sound behind him; it was only a symbol, a concentration, of the whole Land's abominable doom. Without Thomas Covenant-! Mhoram could not complete the thought. He walked up through the barren hills away from Revelstone, up toward the river and northward along it, with an abyss in his heart where the survival of the Land should have been. This, he told himself, was what Kevin Landwaster must have felt when Lord Foul overwhelmed Kurash Plenethor, making all responses short of Desecration futile. He did not know how the pain of it could be endured.

  After a time, he found himself standing cold in the wind on a hill above Glimmermere. Below him, the rare, potent waters of the lake lay unruffled despite the buffeting of the wind. Though the skies above it were as gray as the ashes of the world's end, it seemed to shine with remembered sunlight. It reflected cleanly the hills and the distant mountains, and through its purity he could see its fathomless, rocky bottom.

  He knew what he would have to do; he lacked courage, not comprehension. The last exactions of faith lay unrolled before him in his dread like the map of a country which no longer existed. When he stumbled frozenly down toward the lake, he did so because he had nowhere else to turn. There was Earthpower in Glimmermere. He placed his staff on the bank, stripped off his robe, and dropped into the lake, praying that its icy waters would do for him what he could not do for himself.

  Though he was already numb with cold, the water seemed to burn instantly over all his flesh, snatch him out of his numbness like a conflagration in his nerves. He had had no thought of swimming when he had slipped into the depths, but the force of Glimmermere triggered reactions in him, sent him clawing up toward the surface. With a whooping gasp, he broke water, sculled for a moment to catch his breath against the fiery chill, then struck out for the bank where he had left his robe.

  Climbing out onto the hillside, he felt aflame with cold, but he compelled himself to remain naked while the wind made ice of the water on his limbs and dried him. Then he pulled his robe urgently over his shoulders, hugged his staff to his chest so that its heat warmed him where he most needed warming. His feverish chill took some time to pass, and while he waited, he braced himself, strove to shore up his heart against the obstacles and the dismay which awaited him.

  He had to do something which was obviously impossible. He had to slay samadhi Satansfist.

  He would need help.

  Putting grimly aside all his former scruples, he turned to the only possible source of help-the only aid whose faithfulness matched his need. He raised one cold hand to his lips and whistled shrilly three times.

  The turbulent wind seemed to snatch the sound to pieces, tatter it instantly. In a place where echoes were common, his call disappeared without resonance or answer; the wind tore it away as if to undo his purpose, make him unheard. Nevertheless he summoned his trust, pried himself up the hillside to stand waiting on the vantage of the crest. A suspense like the ether of despair filled him, but he faced the western mountains as if his heart knew neither doubt nor fear.

  Long moments which sharpened his suspense to the screaming point passed before he saw a dull brown movement making its way toward him out of the mountains. Then his soul leaped up in spite of its burdens, and he stood erect with the wind snapping in his ears so that his stance would be becoming to the Ranyhyn that was answering his call.

  The wait nearly froze the blood in his veins, but at last the Ranyhyn reached the hills around Glimmermere, and nickered in salutation.

  Mhoram groaned at the sight. In order to answer his call, the Ranyhyn must have left the Plains of Ra scores of days ago-must have fled Satansfist's army to run straight across the Center Plains into the Westron Mountains, then found its pathless way among the high winter of the peaks northward to the spur of the range which jutted east and ended in the plateau of Revelstone. The long ordeal of the mountain trek had exacted a severe price from the great stallion. His flesh hung slack over gaunt ribs, he stumbled painfully on swollen joints, and his coat had a look of ragged misery. Still Mhoram recognized the Ranyhyn, and greeted him with all the respect his voice could carry:

  "Hail, Drinny, proud Ranyhyn! Oh, bravely done! Worthy son of a worthy mother. Tail of the Sky, Mane of the World, I am"-a clench of emotion caught his throat, and he could only whisper-"I am honored.''

  Drinny made a valiant effort to trot up to Mhoram, but when he reached the High Lord he rested his head trembling on Mhoram's shoulder as if he needed the support in order to keep his feet. Mhoram hugged his neck, whispered words of praise and encouragement in his ear, stroked his ice-clogged coat. They stood together as if in their differing weaknesses they were making promises to each other. Then Mhoram answered the nudging of Drinny's unquenchable pride by springing onto the Ranyhyn's back. Warming the great horse with his staff, he rode slowly, resolutely, back toward Revelstone.

  The ride took time-time made arduous and agonizing by the frailty of Drinny's muscles, his painful, exhausted stumbling. While they passed down through the hills, Mhoram's own weariness returned, and he remembered his inadequacy, his stupefying dread. But he had placed his feet on the strait path of his faith; now he held the Ranyhyn between his knees and bound himself in his determination not to turn aside. Drinny had answered his call. While his thoughts retained some vestige of Glimmermere's clarity, he made his plans.

  Then at last his mount limped down into the wide tunnel which led into Lord's Keep. The clop of hooves echoed faintly against the smooth stone walls and ceiling-echoed and scurried ahead of the High Lord like a murmurous announcement of his return. Soon he could feel the voices of the Keep spreading word of him, proclaiming that he had come back on a Ranyhyn. People left their work and hastened to the main passage of the tunnel to see him. They lined his way, muttered in wond
er or pain at the sight of the Ranyhyn, whispered intently to each other about the look of focused danger which shone in his eyes. Down into the Keep he rode as if he were borne on a low current of astonishment and hope.

  After he had ridden a few hundred yards along the main ways of Revelstone, he saw ahead of him the other leaders of the city-the Lords Trevor, Amatin, and Loerya, Warmark Quaan, the two Hearthralls, Tohrm and Borillar. They awaited him as if they had come out together to do him honor. When the Ranyhyn stopped before them, they saluted the High Lord and his mount mutely, lacking words for what they felt.

  He gazed back at them for a moment, studied them. In their separate ways, they were all haggard, needy, stained with battle. Quaan in particular appeared extravagantly worn. His bluff old face was knotted into a habitual scowl now, as if only the clench of constant belligerence held the pieces of his being together. And Amatin, too, looked nearly desperate; her physical slightness seemed to drain her moral stamina. Borillar's face was full of tears that Mhoram knew came from the loss of Thomas Covenant. Trevor and Loerya supported each other, unable to remain upright alone. Of them all, only Tohrm was calm, and his calm was the steadiness of a man who had already passed through his personal crisis. Nothing could be worse for him than the stone Desecration he had experienced in the Close-experienced and mastered. The others met Mhoram with concentrated hope and dismay and suspense and effectlessness in their faces- expressions which begged to know what this returning on a Ranyhyn meant.

  He nodded to their silent salute, then dropped heavily from Drinny's back and moved a step or two closer to them. On the only level for which he had sufficient strength-the level of his authority-he answered them. He spoke softly, but his voice was raw with peril. "Hear me. I am Mhoram son of Variol, High Lord by the choice of the Council. I have taken my decision. Hear me and obey. Warmark Quaan, Drinny of the Ranyhyn must be given care. He must be fed and healed-he must be returned swiftly to his strength. I will ride him soon.

  "Lords, Hearthralls, Warmark-the watchtower of Revelstone must be regained. The gates of the Keep must be cleared. Do it swiftly. Warmark, ready the horses of the Warward. Prepare all mounted warriors and as many unmounted as you deem fit-prepare them to march against samadhi Satansfist. We strike as soon as our way has been made clear."

  He could see that his commands stunned them, that they were appalled at the mad prospect of attacking the Raver's army. But he did not offer them any aid, any reassurance. When the time came for the certain death of his purpose, he hoped to leave behind him men and women who had proved to themselves that they could meet extreme needs-leaders who had learned that they could do without him.

  Yet he could not refuse to explain the reason for his commands. "My friends," he went on with the rawness livid in his tone, "the light of the krill has failed. You know the meaning of this. Thomas Covenant has left the Land-or has fallen to his death-or has been bereft of his ring. Therein lies our sole hope. If the Unbeliever lives-and while the wild magic has not been brought into use against us-we can hope that he will regain his ring.

  "We must act on this hope. It is small-but all hopes are small in this extremity. It is our work to redeem victory from the blood and havoc of despair. We must act. Surely the Despiser knows that ur-Lord Covenant has lost the white gold-if it has been lost and not withdrawn from the Land or captured. Therefore his thoughts may be turned from us for a time. In that time we may have some hope of success against samadhi Raver. And if Lord Foul seeks to prevent the Unbeliever's recovery of his ring, we may give a distant aid to ur-Lord Covenant by requiring the Despiser to look toward us again."

  He could not bear to watch the aghast supplications which wrung the faces of his friends. He put his arm over Drinny's neck and concluded as if he were speaking to the Ranyhyn, "This choice is mine. I will ride against Satansfist alone if I must. But this act must be made."

  At last, Amatin found herself to gasp, "Melenkurion! Melenkurion abatha! Mhoram, have you learned nothing from Trell Atiaran-mate- from the Bloodguard-from Kevin Landwaster himself? You beg yourself to become a Desecrator. In this way, we learn to destroy that which we love!"

  High Lord Mhoram's reply had the sting of authority. "Warmark, I will take no warrior with me who has not accepted this hazard freely. You must explain to the Warward that the light of Loric's krill has failed."

  He ached to rush to his friends, ached to throw his arms around them, hug them, show them in some way his love and his terrible need for them. But he knew himself; he knew he would be utterly unable to leave them if they did not first show their independence to themselves and him by meeting alone his extreme demands. His own courage hung too much on the verge of faltering; he needed some demonstration from them to help him follow the strait line of faith. So he contained himself by hugging Drinny tightly for a moment, then turned on his heel and walked stiffly away to his private chambers.

  He spent the next days alone, trying to rest-searching himself for some resource which would enable him to bear the impossibility and the uselessness of his decision. But a fever was on his soul. The foundation of serenity which had sustained him for so long seemed to have eroded. Whether he lay on his bed, or ate, or paced his chambers, or studied, he could feel a great emptiness in the heart of the Keep where the krill's fire should have been. He had not realized how much that white blaze had taught him to rely on the Unbeliever. Its quenching left him face to face with futile death-death for himself, for Drinny, for any who dared follow him-death that could only be trusted to foreshorten Revelstone's survival. So he spent large stretches of the time on his hands and knees on the floor, probing through the stone in an effort to sense how his commands were being met.

  Without difficulty he read the preparations of the Warward. The few hundred horses which had been stabled in the Keep were being made ready. The duty rotations of the warriors were changed so that those who chose to follow the High Lord could rest and prepare. And as a result, the burden of resisting samadhi's attacks fell on fewer shoulders. Soon the defense took on a febrile pitch which matched Mhoram' s own fever. His commands had hastened the Warward's ineluctable decline into frenzy and desperation. He ground his teeth on that pain and hunted elsewhere in the city for the Lords.

  He found that Lord Amatin had retreated to the isolation of the Loresraat's libraries, but Trevor, Loerya, and Hearthrall Tohrm were active. Together, Lord Trevor and Tohrm went down into one of the unfrequented caverns directly under the tower. There they combined their lore in a rite dangerously similar to Trell's destruction of the Close, and sent a surge of heat up through the stone into the passages of the tower. They stoked the heat for a day, raised it against the enemy until the Cavewights and creatures began to abandon the tower.

  And when the lowest levels were empty, Lord Loerya led several Eoman in an assault. Under cover of darkness, they leaped from the main Keep into the sand, crossed the courtyard, and entered the tower to fight their way upward. By the dawn of the third day, they were victorious. Makeshift crosswalks were thrown up over the courtyard, and hundreds of archers rushed across to help secure the tower.

  Their success gave Mhoram a pride in them that eased his distress for a time. He doubted that the tower could be held for more than a day or two, but a day or two would be enough, if the rest of his commands were equally met.

  Then, during the third day, Amatin returned to work. She had spent the time in an intense study of certain arcane portions of the Second Ward which High Lord Mhoram himself had never grasped, and there she had found the rites and invocations she sought. Armed with that knowledge, she went to the abutments directly above the courtyard, made eldritch signs and symbols on the stone, wove rare gestures, chanted songs in the lost language of the Old Lords-and below her the sandy remains of the dead slowly parted. They pulled back far enough to permit the opening of the gates, far enough to permit an army to ride out of Revelstone.

  Her achievement drew Mhoram from his chambers to watch. When she was done, she co
llapsed in his arms, but he was so proud of her that his concern was dominated by relief. When the Healers assured him she would soon recover if she were allowed to rest, he left her and went to the stables to see Drinny.

  He found a Ranyhyn that hardly resembled the ragged, worn horse he had ridden into Revelstone. Good food and treatment had rekindled the light in Drinny's eyes, renewed his flesh, restored elasticity to his muscles. He pranced and nickered for Mhoram as if to show the High Lord he was ready.

  Such things rejuvenated Mhoram. Without further hesitation, he told Warmark Quaan that he would ride out against the Raver the next morning.

  But late that night, while Trevor, Loerya, and Quaan all struggled against a particularly fierce flurry of onslaughts, Lord Amatin came to Mhoram's rooms. She did not speak, but her wan, bruised aspect caught at his heart. Her labors had done something to her; in straining herself so severely, she had lost her defenses, left herself exposed to perils and perceptions for which she was neither willing nor apt. This vulnerability gave her a look of abjection, as if she had come to cast herself at Mhoram's feet.

  Without a word, she raised her hands to the High Lord. In them she held the krill of Loric.

  He accepted it without dropping his gaze from her face. "Ah, sister Amatin," he breathed gently, "you should rest. You have earned-"

  But a spasm of misery around her eyes cut him off. He looked down, made himself look at the krill.

  Deep in its gem, he saw faint glimmerings of emerald.

  Without a word, Amatin turned and left him alone with the knowledge that Covenant's ring had fallen into the power of the Despiser.

  When he left his rooms the next morning, he looked like a man who had spent the night wrestling in vain against his own damnation. His step had lost its conviction; he moved as if his very bones were loose and bending. And the dangerous promise of his gaze had faded, leaving his eyes dull, stricken. He bore the krill within his robe and could feel Lord Foul's sick emerald hold upon it growing. Soon, he knew, the cold of the green would begin to burn his flesh. But he was past taking any account of such risks. He dragged himself forward as if he were on his way to commit a perfidy which appalled him.