THE POWER THAT PRESERVES

by default

  " F m a leper,'' Covenant responded. He was surprised to hear himself say the word without bitterness. "I can stand anything. Because I can't feel it." He gestured with his diseased hands because his tears so obviously contradicted him. "This is a dream. It can't touch me. I'm"-he grimaced, remembering the belief which had first led Elena to break the Law of Death-"numb."

  Answering tears blurred Foamfollower's cavernous eyes. "And you are very brave," he said in a thick voice. "You are beyond me."

  The Giant's grief almost reopened Covenant's weeping. But he steadied himself by thinking of the questions he would have to ask, the things he would have to say. He wanted to smile for Foamfollower, but his cheeks were too stiff. Then he felt he had been caught in the act of a perennial failure, a habitual inadequacy of response. He was relieved to turn away when Banner called their attention to the weather.

  Bannor made him aware of the absence of wind. In his struggle with Elena, he had hardly noticed the change. But now he could feel the stillness of the atmosphere like a palpable healing. For a time, at least, Lord Foul's gelid frenzy was gone. And without the wind to drive it, the gray cloud-cover hung sullen and empty overhead, like a casket without a corpse.

  As a result, the air felt warmer. Covenant half expected to see dampness on the ground as the hard earth thawed, half expected spring to begin on the spot. In the gentle stillness, the sound of the waterfall reached him clearly.

  Banner's perceptions went further; he sensed something Covenant had missed. After a moment, he took Covenant and Foamfollower to the Colossus to show them what he had found.

  From the obsidian monolith came a soft emanation of heat.

  This warmth held the true promise of spring; it smelled of buds and green grass, of aliantha and moss and forest-loam. Under its influence, Covenant found that he could relax. He put aside misery, fear, unresolved need, and sank down gratefully to sit with his back against the soothing stone.

  Foamfollower hunted around the area until he located the sack of provisions he had carried with him from the Ramen covert. He took out food and his pot of graveling. Together, he, Bannor, and Covenant ate a silent meal under the fist of the Colossus as if they were sharing a communion-as if they accepted the stone's warmth and shelter to do it honor. They had no other way to express their thanks.

  Covenant was hungry; he had had nothing but Demondim-drink to sustain him for days. Yet he ate the food, absorbed the warmth, with a strange humility, as if he had not earned them, did not deserve them. He knew in his heart that the destruction of the Staff purchased nothing more than a brief respite for the Land, a short delay in the Despiser's eventual triumph. And that respite was not his doing. The reflex which had triggered the white gold was surely as unconscious, as involuntary, as if it had happened in his sleep. And yet another life had been spent on his account. That knowledge humbled him. He fed and warmed himself because all his work had yet to be done, and no other being in the Land could do it for him.

  When the frugal meal was finished, he began his task by asking his companions how they had come to the Colossus.

  Foamfollower winced at the memory. He left the telling of it to Banner's terseness. While Banner spoke, the Giant cleaned and tended Covenant's forehead.

  In short sentences, Banner indicated that the Ramen had been able to defeat the attack on their covert, thanks to the Giant's prodigious aid. But the battle had been a long and costly one, and the night was gone before Bannor and Foamfollower could begin to search for Covenant and Lena. ("Ur-viles!'' Foamfollower muttered at Covenant's injury. ' "This will not heal. To make you captive, they put their mark upon you.") The Mane-thralls permitted only two Cords, Whane and Lal, to aid in the search. For during the night, a change had come over the Ranyhyn. To the surprise and joy of the Ramen, the great horses had unexpectedly started south toward the sanctuary of the mountains. The Ramen followed at once. Only their mixed awe and concern for the Ringthane induced them to give Bannor and Foamfollower any aid at all.

  So the four of them began the hunt. But they had lost too much time; wind and snow had obscured the trail. They lost it south of the Roamsedge and could find no trace of Covenant. At last they concluded that he must have gained other aid to take him eastward. Together the four made what haste they could toward the Fall of the River Landrider.

  The journey was made slow and arduous by kresh packs and marauders, and the four feared that Covenant would have left the Upper Land days ago. But when they neared the Colossus, they came upon a band of ur-viles accompanied by the Raver, Herem-Triock. Then the four were dismayed to see that the band bore with it the Unbeliever, prostrate as if he were dead.

  The four attacked, slew the ur-viles. But they could not prevent the call which Herem sent. And before they could defeat Herem, rescue Covenant, and retrieve the ring, that call was answered by the dead Elena, wielding the Staff of Law. She mastered the four effortlessly. Then she gave Whane to Herem, so that Triock's anguish would be more poignant. When Jehannum came to her, that Raver entered Lal. Covenant knew the rest.

  Bannor and Foamfollower had seen no sign of Lena. They did not know what had delayed Covenant's arrival at Landsdrop.

  As Bannor finished, Foamfollower growled in angry disgust, "Stone and Sea! She has made me unclean. I must bathe-I will need a sea to wash away this coercion."

  Bannor nodded. "I, also."

  But neither of them moved, though the River Landrider was nearby beyond a low line of hills. Covenant knew they were holding themselves at his disposal; they seemed to sense that he needed them. And they had questions of their own. But he felt unready for the things he would have to say. After a silence, he asked painfully,' Triock summoned me-and he's dead. Why am I still here?"

  Foamfollower mused briefly, then said, "Perhaps because the Law of Death has been broken-perhaps it was that Law which formerly sent you from the Land when your summoner died. Or perhaps it is because I also had a hand in this call."

  Yes, Covenant sighed to himself. His debt to Triock was hardly less than what he owed Foamfollower.

  He could not shirk the responsibility any longer; he forced himself to describe what had happened to Lena.

  His voice was dull as he spoke of her-an old woman brought to a bloody and graveless end because in her confusion she clung to the man who had harmed her. And her death was only the most recent tragedy in her family. First and last, her people had borne the brunt of him: Trell Gravelingas, Atiaran Trell-mate, High Lord Elena, Lena herself-he had ruined them all. Such things altered him, made a different man of him. That made it possible for him to ask another question after he had told all he knew of his own tale.

  "Foamfollower"-he framed his inquiry as carefully as he could- "it's none of my business. But Pietten said some terrible things about you. Or he meant them to be terrible. He said-" But he could not say the words. No matter how he uttered them, they would sound like an accusation.

  The Giant sighed, and his whole frame sagged. He studied his intertwined hands as if somewhere in their clasped gentleness and butchery were a secret he could not unclose, but he no longer evaded the question. "He said that I betrayed my kinfolk-that the Giants of Seareach died to the last child at the hands of turiya Raver because I abandoned them. It is true."

  Foamfollower! Covenant moaned. My friend! Sorrow welled up in him, almost made him weep again.

  Abstractedly, Bannor said, "Many things were lost in The Grieve that day."

  " Yes." Foamfollower blinked as if he were trying to hold back tears, but his eyes were dry, as parched as a wilderland. "Yes-many things. Among them I was the least.

  "Ah, Covenant, how can I tell you of it? This tongue has no words long enough for the tale. No word can encompass the love for a lost homeland, or the anguish of diminishing seed, or the pride-the pride in fidelity- That fidelity was our only reply to our extinction. We could not have borne our decline if we had not taken pride.

  "So my people-the Giants-I also, in my own way-the Giants were f
illed with horror-with abhorrence so deep that it numbed the very marrow of their bones-when they saw their pride riven-torn from them like rotten sails in the wind. They foundered at the sight. They saw the portent of their hope of Home-the three brothers-changed from fidelity to the most potent ill by one small stroke of the Despiser's evil. Who in the Land could hope to stand against a Giant-Raver? Thus the Unhomed became the means to destroy that to which they had held themselves true. And in horror at the naught of their fidelity, their folly practiced through long centuries of pride, they were transfixed. Their revulsion left no room in them for thought or resistance or choice. Rather than behold the cost of their failure-rather than risk the chance that more of them would be made Soulcrusher's servants-they-they elected to be slain.

  "I also-in my way, I was horrified as well. But I had already seen what they had not, until that moment. I had seen myself become what I hated. Alone of all my kindred, I was not surprised. It was not the vision of a Giant-Raver which horrified me. It was my-my own people.

  "Ah! Stone and Sea! They appalled me. I stormed at them-I ran through The Grieve like a dark sea of madness, howling at their abandonment, raging to strike one spark of resistance in the drenched tinder of their hearts. But they-they put away their tools, and banked their fires, and made ready their homes as if in preparation for departure-'' Abruptly, his suppressed passion broke into a cry. "My people! I could not bear it! I fled them with abjection crowding at my heart-fled them lest I, too, should fall into their dismay. Therefore they were slain. I who might have fought the Raver deserted them in the deepest blackness of their need." Unable to contain himself any longer, he heaved to his feet. His raw, scourged voice rasped thickly in his throat. "I am unclean. I must-wash."

  Holding himself stiffly upright, he turned and lumbered away toward the river.

  The helplessness of Covenant's pain came out as anger. His own voice shook as he muttered to Banner, "If you say one word to blame him, I swear-"

  Then he stopped himself. He had accused Bannor unjustly too often in the past; the Bloodguard had long ago earned better treatment than this from him. But Bannor only shrugged. "I am a Haruchai, " he said. "We also are not immune. Corruption wears many faces. Blame is a more enticing face than others, but it is none the less a mask for the Despiser.''

  His speech made Covenant look at him closely. Something came up between them that had never been laid to rest, neither on Gallows Howe nor in the Ramen covert. It wore the aspect of habitual Bloodguard distrust, but as he met Banner's eyes, Covenant sensed that the issue was a larger one.

  Without inflection, Bannor went on: "Hate and vengeance are also masks."

  Covenant was struck by how much the Bloodguard had aged. His mortality had accelerated. His hair was the same silver as his eyebrows; his skin had a sere appearance, as if it had started to wither; and his wrinkles looked oddly fatal, like gullies of death in his countenance. Yet his steady dispassion seemed as complete as ever. He did not look like a man who had deserted his sworn loyalty to the Lords.

  "Ur-Lord," he said evenly, "what will you do?"

  "Do?" Covenant did his best to match the Bloodguard, though he could not look at Banner's aging without remorse. "I still have work to do. I've got to go to Foul's Creche."

  "For what purpose?"

  "I've got to stop him."

  "High Lord Elena also strove to stop him. You have seen the outcome."

  "Yes." Covenant did full justice to Banner's statement. But he did not falter. "I've got to find a better answer than she did."

  "Do you make this choice out of hate?"

  He met the question squarely. "I don't know."

  "Then why do you go?"

  "Because I must." That must carried the weight of an irrefusable necessity. The escape he had envisioned when he had left Morinmoss did not suffice. The Land's need held him like a harness. "I've done so many things wrong. I've got to try to make them right."

  Bannor considered this for a moment, then asked bluntly, "Do you know then how to make use of the wild magic?"

  "No," Covenant answered. "Yes." He hesitated, not because he doubted his reply, but because he was reluctant to say it aloud. But his sense of what was unresolved between him and Bannor had become clearer; something more than distrust was at stake. "I don't know how to call it up, do anything with it. But I know how to trigger it." He remembered vividly how Bannor had compelled him to help High Lord Prothall summon the Fire-Lions of Mount Thunder. "If I can get to the Illearth Stone-I can do something."

  The Bloodguard's voice was hard. "The Stone corrupts."

  "I know." He understood Banner's point vividly. "I know. That's why I have to get to it. That's what this is all about-everything. That's why Foul has been manipulating me. That's why Elena-why Elena did what she did. That's why Mhoram trusted me."

  Bannor did not relent. "Will it be another Desecration?"

  Covenant had to steady himself before he could reply. "I hope not. I don't want it to be."

  In answer, the Bloodguard got to his feet. Looking soberly down at the Unbeliever, he said, "Ur-Lord Covenant, I will not accompany you for this purpose."

  "Not?" Covenant protested. In the back of his mind, he had been counting on Banner's companionship.

  "No. I no longer serve Lords."

  More harshly than he intended, Covenant rasped, "So you've decided to turn your back?"

  "No.'' Bannor denied the charge flatly. "What help I can, I will give. All the Bloodguard knowledge of the Spoiled Plains, of Kurash Qwellinir and Hotash Slay, I will share with you. But Ridjeck Thome, Corruption's seat-there I will not go. The deepest wish of the Bloodguard was to fight the Despiser in his home, pure service against Corruption. This desire misled. I have put aside such things. My proper place now is with the Ranyhyn and their Ramen, in the exile of the mountains."

  Covenant seemed to hear an anguish behind the inflectionless tone of the speech-an anguish that hurt him in the same way that this man always hurt him. "Ah, Bannor," he sighed. "Are you so ashamed of what you were?"

  Bannor cocked a white eyebrow at the question, as if it came close to the truth. "I am not shamed," he said distinctly. "But I am saddened that so many centuries were required to teach us the limits of our worth. We went too far, in pride and folly. Mortal men should not give up wives and sleep and death for any service-lest the face of failure become too abhorrent to be endured." He paused almost as if he were hesitating, then concluded, "Have you forgotten that High Lord Elena carved our faces as one in her last marrowmeld work?"

  "No." Bannor had moved him. His response was both an assertion and a promise. "I will never forget."

  Bannor nodded slowly. Then he said, "I, too, must wash," and strode away toward the river without a backward glance.

  Covenant watched him go for a moment, then leaned his head back against the warmth of the Colossus and closed his sore eyes. He knew that he should not delay his departure any longer, that he increased his risks every moment he remained where he was. Lord Foul was certain to know what had happened; he would feel the sudden destruction of the Staff, and would search until he found the explanation, perhaps by compelling Elena once more out of her death to answer his questions. Then preparations would be made against the Unbeliever; Foul's Creche would be defended; hunting parties would be sent out. Any delay might mean defeat.

  But Covenant was not ready. He still had one more confession to make-the last and hardest thing he would have to tell his friends. So he sat absorbing the heat of the Colossus like sustenance while he waited for Bannor and Foamfollower to return. He did not want to carry the weight of any more dishonesty with him when he left the place where Triock had

  died.

  Bannor was not gone long. He and Foamfollower returned dripping to dry themselves in the heat of the stone. Foamfollower had regained his composure. His teeth flashed through his stiff wet beard as if he were eager to be on his way-as if he were ready to fight his way through a sea of foes for one chanc
e to strike a blow at the Despiser. And Bannor stood dourly at the Giant's side. They were equals, despite the difference in size. They both met Covenant's gaze when he looked up at them. For an odd moment he felt torn between them, as if they represented the opposing poles of his dilemma.

  But odder than this torn feeling was the confidence which came with it. In that fleeting moment, he seemed to recognize where he stood for the first time. While the impression lasted, his fear or reluctance or uncertainty dropped from him.' "There's one more thing,'' he said to both his friends at once, "one more thing I've got to tell you."

  Then, because he did not want to see their reactions until he had given them the whole tale, he sat gazing into the lifeless circle of his ring while he described how High Lord Mhoram had summoned him to Revelstone, and how he had refused.

  He spoke as concisely as he could without minimizing the plight of Revelstone as he had seen it then, or the danger of the little girl for whom he had denied Mhoram's appeal, or the hysteria which had been on him when he had made his choice. He found as he spoke that he did not regret the decision. It seemed to have nothing to do with either his regret or his volition; he simply could not have chosen otherwise. But the Land had many reasons for regret-a myriad reasons, one for every life which had been lost, one for every day which had been added to the winter, because he had not given himself and his ring into Mhoram's hands. He explained what he had done so that Bannor and Foamfollower at least would not be able to reproach him for dishonesty.

  When he was done, he looked up again. Neither Bannor nor Foamfollower met his eyes at first; in their separate ways, they appeared upset by what they had heard. But finally Bannor returned Covenant's gaze and said levelly, "A costly choice, Unbeliever. Costly. Much harm might have been averted-"

  Foamfollower interrupted him. "Costly! Might!" A fierce grin stretched his lips, echoed out of his deep eyes. "A child was saved! Covenant-my friend-even reduced as I am, I can hear joy in such a choice. Your bravery-Stone and Sea! It astounds me."