THE POWER THAT PRESERVES

by default

  The same pressures, the same fetid and uncontrollable tension of muscles and thews-bereft of volition by the rot in his nerves-bowed his forearms so that they hung grotesquely from his elbows. Then pus began to blossom like sweat from the abscessed pores of his upper arms. When he twitched his robe aside, he found that his legs were already contorted to the knees.

  The assault horrified him, buried him in misery and self-loathing. He was wearing his own future, the outcome of his illness-the destination of the road down which every leper fared who did not either kill himself or fight hard enough to stay alive. He was seeing the very thing which had first determined him to survive, all those long months ago in the leprosarium, but now it was upon him, virulent and immedicable. His leprosy was in full rank flower, and he had nothing left for which to fight.

  Nevertheless he was on his home ground. He knew leprosy with the intimacy of a lover; he knew that it could not happen so swiftly, so completely. It was not real. And it was not all of him. This heinous and putrescent gnawing was not the sum total of his being. Despite what the doctors said-despite what he saw in himself-he was more than that, more than just a leper.

  No, Foul! he panted bitterly. It's not that easy.

  "Tom. Tom!" a stricken voice cried. It was familiar to him-a voice as known and beloved as health. "Give it up. Don't you see what you're doing to us?"

  He looked up, and saw Joan standing before him. She held their infant son, Roger, in her hands, so that the child was half extended like an offering toward him. Both of them appeared just as they had been when he had last seen them, so long ago; Joan had the same look of torn grief in her face, the expression that begged him to understand why she had already decided to divorce him. But she was inexplicably naked. His heart wept in him when he saw the lost love of her loins, the unwillingness of her breasts, the denied treasure of her face.

  As he gazed at her, purple stains began to show through the warmth of her skin. Abscesses suppurated on her breasts; sickness oozed from her nipples like milk.

  Roger was puling pathetically in her hands. When he turned his helpless infant head toward his father, Covenant saw that his eyes were already glazed and cataractal, half blinded by leprosy. Two dim magenta spots tainted his cheeks.

  Foul! Covenant shrieked. Damn you!

  Then he saw other figures pressing forward behind Joan. Mhoram was there; Lena and Atiaran were there; Bannor and Hile Troy were there. Mhoram's whole face had fallen into yellow rot and running chancrous sores; his eyes cried out through the infection as if they were drowning in a quagmire of atrocious wrong. All Lena's hair had fallen out, and her bald scalp bristled with tubercular nodules. Atiaran's eyes were drowning in milky blindness. The grotesque gnarling of Banner's limbs entirely crippled him. Troy's eyeless face was one puckered mass of gangrene, as if the very brain within his skull were festering.

  And behind these figures stood more of the people Covenant had known in the Land. All were mortally ill, rife and hideous with leprosy. And behind them crowded multitudes more, numberless victims-all the people of the Land stricken and destitute, abominable to themselves, as ruined as if Covenant had brought a plague of absolute virulence among them.

  At the sight of them, he erupted. Fury at their travail spouted up in him like lava. Volcanic anger, so long buried under the weight of his complex ordeal, sent livid, fiery passion geysering into the void.

  Foul! he screamed. Foul! You can't do this!

  "I will do it," came the mocking reply. "I am doing it."

  Stop it!

  "Give me the ring."

  Never!

  "Then enjoy what you have brought to pass. Behold! I have given you companions. The solitary leper has remade the world in his own image, so that he will not be alone."

  I won't let you!

  The Despiser laughed sardonically. "You will aid me before you die."

  "Never! Damn you! Never!"

  Fury exalted Covenant-fury as hot as magma. A rage for lepers carried him beyond all his limits. He took one last look at the victims thronging innumerably before him. Then he began to struggle for freedom like a newborn man fighting his way out of an old skin.

  He seemed to be standing in the nowhere nothingness of the abyss, but he knew that his physical body still knelt on the floor of the thronehall-With a savage effort of will, he disregarded all sensory impressions, all appearances that prevented him from perceiving where he was. Trembling, jerking awkwardly, he levered his gaunt frame to its feet. The eyes of his body were blind, still caught in Lord Foul's control, but he grated fiercely, "I see you, Foul." He did not need eyes. He could sense with the nerves of his stiff cheeks the emanations of power around him.

  He took three lumbering, tottering steps, and felt Foul suddenly surge toward him, rush to stop him. Before the Despiser could reach him, he raised his hands and fell fists-first at the Illearth Stone.

  The instant his wedding band struck the Stone, a hurricane of might exploded in his hand. Gales of green and white fire blasted through the air, shattered it like a bayamo. The veil of Lord Foul's assault was shredded in a moment and blown away. Covenant found himself lying on the floor with a tornado of power gyring upward from his halfhand.

  He heaved to his feet. With one flex of his arms, he freed his wrists as if the shackles were a skein of lies.

  Foul's penumbral shadow crouched in battle-readiness across the Stone from him. The Despiser brandished his carious eyes as if he were frantic to drive them into Covenant's heart. "Fool!" he howled shrilly. "Groveler! It is I who rule here! Alone I am your rightful master-and I command the Stone! I will destroy you. You will not so much as touch me!"

  As he yelled, he threw out a flare of force which struck Covenant's hand, embedded itself deep in the core of his ring. Amid its raging gale, the white gold was altered. Cold ill soaked into the metal, forced itself into the ring until all the argent had been violated by green. Again, Covenant felt himself falling out of the thronehall.

  Without transition, he found himself on Kevin's Watch. He stood on the stone platform like a titan, and with his malefic band he alone levied a new Ritual of Desecration upon the Land. All health withered before him. Great Gilden trees splintered and broke. Flowers died. Aliantha grew barren and became dust. Soil turned to sand. Rivers ran dry. Stonedowns and Woodhelvens were overthrown. Starvation and homelessness slew every shape of life that walked upon the earth. He was the Lord of a ruin more absolute than any other, a desolation utterly irreparable.

  Never!

  With one violent thrust of his will, he struck the green from his ring and returned to the thronehall. His wedding band was immaculate silver, and the slashing wind of its power was wild beyond all emerald mastery.

  He almost laughed. The Stone could not corrupt him; he was already as fundamentally diseased as any corruption could make him.

  To the Despiser, he rasped, "You've had your chance. You've used your filthy power. Now it' s my turn. You can' t stop me. You've broken too many Laws. And I'm outside the Law. It doesn't control wild magic, it doesn't control me. But it was the only thing that might have stopped me. You could have used it against me. Now it's just me-it's my will that makes the difference." He was panting heavily; he could not find enough air to support the extremity of his passion. "I'm a leper, Foul. I can stand anything."

  At once, the Despiser attacked him. Foul put his hands on the Illearth Stone, placed his power on the pulsing heart of its violence. He sent green might raving at Covenant.

  It fell on him like the collapse of a mountain, piled onto him like tons of wrecked stone. At first he could not focus the ring on it, and it drove him staggering backward. But then he found his error. He had tried to use the wild magic like a tool or weapon, something which could be wielded. But High Lord Mhoram had told him, You are the white gold. It was not a thing to be commanded, employed well or ill as skill or awkwardness allowed. Now that it was awake, it was a part of him, an expression of himself. He did not need to focus it,
aim it; bone and blood, it arose from his passion.

  With a shout, he threw back the attack, shattered it into a million droplets of rank fever.

  Again Lord Foul struck. Power that fried the air between them sprang at Covenant, strove to interrupt the white, windless gale of the ring. Their conflict coruscated through the thronehall like a mad gibberish of lightning, green and white blasting, battering, devouring each other like all the storms of the world gone insane.

  Its sheer immensity daunted Covenant, tried like a landslide to sweep the feet of his resolve from under him. He was unacquainted with power, unadept at combat. But his rage for lepers, for the Land, for the victims of Despite, kept him upright. And his Unbelief enabled him. He knew more completely than any native of the Land could have known that Lord Foul was not unbeatable. In this manifestation, Despite had no absolute reality of existence. The people of the Land would have failed in the face of Despite because they were convinced of it. Covenant was not. He was not overwhelmed; he did not believe that he had to fail. Lord Foul was only an externalized part of himself-not an immortal, not a god. Triumph was possible.

  So he threw himself heart and soul and blood and bone into the battle. He did not think of defeat; the personal cost was irrelevant. Lord Foul beat him back until he was pressed to the wall at Foamfollower's side. The savagery of the Stone made a holocaust around him, tore every last flicker of warmth from the air, shot great lurid icicles of hatred at him. But he did not falter. The wild magic was passionate and unfathomable, as high as Time and as deep as Earth-raw power limited only by the limits of his will. And his will was growing, raising its head, blossoming on the rich sap of rage. Moment by moment, he was becoming equal to the Despiser's attack.

  Soon he was able to move. He forged away from the wall, waded like a strong man through the tempest toward his enemy. White and green blasts scalded the atmosphere; detonations of savage lightning shattered against each other. Lord Foul's fiery cold and Covenant's gale tore at each other's throats, rent each other, renewed themselves and tore again. In the virulence of the battle, Covenant thought that Ridjeck Thome would surely come crashing down. But the Creche stood; the thronehall stood. Only Covenant and Lord Foul shook in the thunderous silence of the power storm.

  Abruptly, he succeeded in driving Lord Foul back from the Stone. At once, his own fire blazed still higher. Without direct contact, the Despiser's control over his emerald bane was less perfect. His exertions became more frenzied, erratic. Unmastered force rocked the throne, tore ragged hunks of stone from the ceiling, cracked the floor. He was screaming now in a language Covenant could not understand.

  The Unbeliever grabbed his opportunity. He moved forward, rained furious gouts and bolts of wild magic at the Despiser, then suddenly began to form a wall of might between Lord Foul and the Stone. Lord Foul shrieked, tried frantically to regain the Stone. But he was too late. In an instant, Covenant's force had surrounded Lord Foul.

  With all the rage of his will, he pressed his advantage. He pounced like a hawk, clenched power around the Despiser. Whitely, brutally, he began to penetrate the penumbra.

  Lord Foul's aura resisted with shrieks and showers of sparks. It was tough, obdurate; it shed Covenant's feral bolts as if they were mere show, incandescent child's play. But he refused to be denied. The dazzling of his wild magic flung shafts and quarrels of might at the emerald glister of the aura until one prodigious blast pierced it.

  It ruptured with a shock which jarred the thronehall like an earth tremor. Waves of concussion pealed at Covenant's head, hammered at his sore and feverish skull. But he clung to his power, did not let his will wince.

  The whole penumbra burst into flame like a skin of green tinder, and as it burned it tore, peeled away, fell in hot shreds and tatters to the floor.

  Within Covenant's clench, Lord Foul the Despiser began to appear.

  By faint degrees, he became material, drifted from corporeal absence to presence. Perfectly molded limbs, as pure as alabaster, grew slowly visible-an old, grand, leonine head, magisterially crowned and bearded with flowing white hair-an enrobed, dignified trunk, broad and solid with strength. Only his eyes showed no change, no stern, impressive surge of incarnation; they lashed constantly at Covenant like fangs wet with venom.

  When he was fully present, Lord Foul folded his arms on his chest and said harshly, "Now you do in truth see me, groveler." His tone gave no hint of fear or surrender. "Do you yet believe that you are my master? Fool! I grew beyond your petty wisdom or belief long before your world's babyhood. I tell you plainly, groveler-Despite such as mine is the only true fruit of experience and insight. In time you will not do otherwise than I have done. You will learn contempt for your fellow beings-for the small malices which they misname their loves and beliefs and hopes and loyalties. You will learn that it is easier to control them than to forbear-easier and better. You will not do otherwise. You will become a shadow of what I am-you will be a despiser without the courage to despise. Continue, groveler. Destroy my work if you must-slay me if you can-but make an end! I am weary of your shallow misperception."

  In spite of himself, Covenant was moved. Lord Foul's lordly mien, his dignity and resignation, spoke more vividly than any cursing or defiance. Covenant saw that he still had answers to find, regardless of all he had endured.

  But before he could respond, try to articulate the emotions and intuitions which Lord Foul's words called up in him, a sudden clap of vehemence splintered the silence of the thronehall. A great invisible door opened in the air at his back; without warning, strong presences, furious and abhorring, stood behind him. The violence of their emanations almost broke his concentrated hold on Lord Foul.

  He clenched his will, steadied himself to face a shock, and turned.

  He found himself looking up at tall figures like the one he had seen in the cave of the EarthBlood under Melenkurion Skyweir. They towered above him, grisly and puissant; he seemed to see them through the stone rather than within the chamber.

  They were the specters of the dead Lords. He recognized Kevin Landwaster son of Loric. Beside Kevin stood two other livid men whom he knew instinctively to be Loric Vilesilencer and Damelon Giantfriend. There were Prothall, Osondrea, a score of men and women Covenant had never met, never heard named. With them was Elena daughter of Lena. And behind and above them all rose another figure, a dominating man with hot prophetic eyes and one halfhand: Berek Earthfriend, the Lord-Fatherer.

  In one voice like a thunder of abomination-one voice of outrage that shook Covenant to the marrow of his bones-they cried, "Slay him! It is within your power. Do not heed his treacherous lies. In the name of all Earth and health, slay him!"

  The intensity of their passion poured at him, flooded him with their extreme desire. They were the sworn defenders of the Land. Its glory was their deepest love. Yet in one way or another, Lord Foul had outdone them all, seen them all taken to their graves while he endured and ravaged. They hated him with a blazing hate that seemed to overwhelm Covenant's individual rage.

  But instead of moving him to obey, their vehemence washed away his fury, his power for battle. Violence drained out of him, giving place to sorrow for them-a sorrow so great that he could hardly contain it, hardly hold back his tears. They had earned obedience from him; they had a right to his rage. But their demand made his intuitions clear to him. He remembered Foamfollower's former lust for killing. He still had something to do, something which could not be done with rage. Anger was only good for fighting, for resistance. Now it could suborn the very thing he had striven to achieve.

  In a voice thick with grief, he answered the Lords, "I can't kill him. He always survives when you try to kill him. He comes back stronger than ever the next time. Despite is like that. I can't kill him."

  His reply stunned them. For a moment, they trembled with astonishment and dismay. Then Kevin asked in horror, "Will you let him live?"

  Covenant could not respond directly, could not give a direct answer. But he
clung to the strait path of his intuition. For the first time since his battle with the Despiser had begun, he turned to Saltheart Foamfollower.

  The Giant stood chained to the wall, watching avidly everything that happened. The bloody flesh of his wrists and ankles showed how hard he had tried to break free, and his face looked as if it had been wrung dry by all the things he had been forced to behold. But he was essentially unharmed, essentially whole. Deep in his cavernous eyes, he seemed to understand Covenant' s dilemma. '' You have done well, my dear friend," he breathed when Covenant met his gaze. " I trust whatever choice your heart makes.''

  "There's no choice about it," Covenant panted, fighting to hold back his tears. "I'm not going to kill him. He'11 just come back. I don't want that on my head. No, Foamfollower-my friend. It's up to you now. You-and them.'' He nodded toward the livid, spectral Lords. "Joy is in the ears that hear-remember? You told me that. I've got joy for you to hear. Listen to me. I've beaten the Despiser-this time. The Land is safe-for now. I swear it. Now I want-Foamfollower!" Involuntary tears blurred his sight. "I want you to laugh. Take joy in it. Bring some joy into this bloody hole. Laugh!" He swung back to shout at the Lords, "Do you hear me? Let Foul alone! Heal yourselves!"

  For a long moment that almost broke his will, there was no sound in the thronehall. Lord Foul blazed contempt at his captor; the Lords stood aghast, uncomprehending; Foamfollower hung in his chains as if the burden were too great for him to bear.

  "Help me!" Covenant cried.

  Then slowly his plea made itself felt. Some prophecy in his words touched the hearts that heard him. With a terrible effort, Saltheart Foamfollower, the last of the Giants, began to laugh.

  It was a gruesome sound at first; writhing in his fetters, Foamfollower spat out the laugh as if it were a curse. On that level, the Lords were able to share it. In low voices, they aimed bursts of contemptuous scorn, jeering hate, at the beaten Despiser. But as Foamfollower fought to laugh, his muscles loosened. The constriction of his throat and chest relaxed, allowing a pure wind of humor to blow the ashes of rage and pain from his lungs. Soon something like joy, something like real mirth, appeared in his voice.