The Illearth War

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Slowly the singing throat opened. Its harmonic pattern became sterner, more demanding. Covenant felt himself pulled forward now, hurried down the tide of the song. Arching with supplication, it took on words.

  Be true, Unbeliever—

  Answer the call.

  Life is the Giver:

  Death ends all.

  The promise is truth,

  And banes disperse

  With promise kept:

  But soul’s deep curse

  On broken faith

  And faithless thrall,

  For doom of darkness

  Covers all.

  Be true, Unbeliever—

  Answer the call.

  Be true.

  The song seemed to reach back into him, stirring memories, calling up people he had once, in one fey mood, thought had the right to make demands of him. But he resisted it. He kept silent, held himself in.

  The melody drew him on into the warm gold.

  At last, the light took on definition. He could locate its shape before him now; it washed out his vision as if he were staring into the sun. But on the last words of the song, the light dimmed, lost its brilliance. As the voice sang, “Be true,” it was seconded by many throats: “Be true!” That adjuration stretched him like the tightening of a string to its final pitch.

  Then the source of the light fell into scale, and he could see beyond it.

  He recognized the place. He was in the Close, the council chamber of the Lords in the heart of Revelstone. Its tiers of seats reached above him on all sides toward the granite ceiling of the hall.

  He was surprised to find himself standing erect on the bottom of the Close. The stance confused his sense of balance, and he stumbled forward toward the pit of graveling, the source of the gold light. The fire-stones burned there before him without consumption, filling the air with the smell of newly broken earth.

  Strong hands caught him by either arm. As his fall was halted, drops of blood spattered onto the stone floor at the edge of the graveling pit.

  Regaining his feet, he cried hoarsely, “Don’t touch me!”

  He was dizzy with confusion and rage, but he braced himself while he put a hand to his forehead. His fingers came away covered with blood. He had cut himself badly on the edge of the table. For a moment, he gaped at his red hand.

  Through his dismay, a quiet, firm voice said, “Be welcome in the Land, ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and Ringthane. I have called you to us. Our need for your aid is great.”

  “You called me?” he croaked.

  “I am Elena,” the voice replied, “High Lord by the choice of the Council, and holder of the Staff of Law. I have called you.”

  “You called me?” Slowly, he raised his eyes. Thick wetness ran from the sockets as if he were weeping blood. “You called me?” He felt a crumbling inside him like rocks breaking, and his hold over himself cracked. In a voice of low anguish, he said, “I was talking to Joan.”

  He saw the woman dimly through the blood in his eyes. She stood behind the stone table on the level above him, holding a long staff in her right hand. There were other people around the table, and behind them the gallery of the Close held many more. They were all watching him.

  “To Joan, do you understand? I was talking to Joan. She called me. After all this time. When I needed—needed. You have no right.” He gathered force like a storm wind. “You’ve got no right! I was talking to Joan!” He shouted with all his might, but it was not enough. His voice could not do justice to his emotion. “To Joan! to Joan! do you hear me? She was my wife!”

  A man who had been standing near the High Lord hurried around the broad open C of the table, and came down to Covenant on the lower level. Covenant recognized the man’s lean face, with its rudder nose mediating between crooked, humane lips and acute, gold flecked, dangerous eyes. He was Lord Mhoram.

  He placed a hand on Covenant’s arm, and said softly, “My friend. What has happened to you?”

  Savagely Covenant threw off the Lord’s hand. “Don’t touch me!” he raged in Mhoram’s face. “Are you deaf as well as blind?! I was talking to Joan! On the phone!” His hand jerked convulsively, struggling to produce the receiver out of the empty air. “She needed”—abruptly his throat clenched, and he swallowed roughly—“she said she needed me. Me!” But his voice was helpless to convey the crying of his heart. He slapped at the blood on his forehead, trying to clear his eyes.

  The next instant, he grabbed the front of Mhoram’s sky-blue robe in his fists, hissed, “Send me back! There’s still time! If I can get back fast enough!”

  Above them, the woman spoke carefully. “Ur-Lord Covenant, it grieves me to hear that our summoning has done you harm. Lord Mhoram has told us all he could of your pain, and we do not willingly increase it. But it is our doom that we must. Unbeliever, our need is great. The devastation of the Land is nearly upon us.”

  Pushing away from Mhoram to confront her, Covenant fumed, “I don’t give a bloody damn about the Land!” His words came in such a panting rush that he could not shout them. “I don’t care what you need. You can drop dead for all I care. You’re a delusion! A sickness in my mind. You don’t exist! Send me back! You’ve got to send me back. While there’s still time!”

  “Thomas Covenant.” Mhoram spoke in a tone of authority that pulled Covenant around. “Unbeliever. Listen to me.”

  Then Covenant saw that Mhoram had changed. His face was still the same—the gentleness of his mouth still balanced the promise of peril in his gold-concentrated irises—but he was older, old enough now to be Covenant’s father. There were lines of use around his eyes and mouth, and his hair was salted with white. When he spoke, his lips twisted with self-deprecation, and the depths of his eyes stirred uneasily. But he met the fire of Covenant’s glare without flinching.

  “My friend, if the choice were mine, I would return you at once to your world. The decision to summon you was painfully made, and I would willingly undo it. The Land has no need of service which is not glad and free. But, ur-Lord”—he gripped Covenant’s arm again to steady him—“my friend, we cannot return you.”

  “Cannot?” Covenant groaned on a rising, half-hysterical note.

  “We have no lore for the releasing of burdens. I know not how it is in your world—you appear unchanged to my eyes—but forty years have passed since we stood together on the slopes of Mount Thunder, and you freed the Staff of Law for our hands. For long years we have striven—”

  “Cannot?” Covenant repeated more fiercely.

  “We have striven with power which we fail to master, and Lore which we have been unable to penetrate. It has taken forty years to bring us here, so that we may ask for your aid. We have reached the limit of what we can do.”

  “No!” He turned away because he could not bear the honesty he saw in Mhoram’s face, and yelled up at the woman with the Staff, “Send me back!”

  For a moment, she looked at him squarely, measuring the extremity of his demand. Then she said, “I entreat you to understand. Hear the truth of our words. Lord Mhoram has spoken openly. I hear the hurt we have done you. I am not unmoved.” She was twenty or thirty feet away from him, beyond the pit of graveling and behind the stone table, but her voice carried to him clearly through the crystal acoustics of the Close. “But I cannot undo your summoning. Had I the power, still the Land’s need would deny me. Lord Foul the Despiser—”

  Head back, arms thrown wide, Covenant howled, “I don’t came!’

  Stung into sharpness, the High Lord said, “Then return yourself. You have the power. You wield the white gold.”

  With a cry, Covenant tried to charge at her. But before he could take a step, he was caught from behind. Wrestling around, he found himself in the grasp of Bannor, the unsleeping Bloodguard who had warded him during his previous delusion.

  “We are the Bloodguard,” Bannor said in his toneless alien inflection. “The care of the Lords is in our hands. We do not permit any offer of harm to the High Lor
d.”

  “Bannor,” Covenant pleaded, “she was my wife.”

  But Bannor only gazed at him with unblinking dispassion.

  Throwing his weight wildly, he managed to turn in the Bloodguard’s powerful grip until he was facing Elena again. Blood scattered from his forehead as he jerked around. “She was my wife!”

  “Enough,” Elena commanded.

  “Send me back!”

  “Enough!” She stamped the iron heel of the Staff of Law on the floor, and at once blue fire burst from its length. The flame roared vividly, like a rent in the fabric of the gold light, letting concealed power shine through; and the force of the flame drove Covenant back into Bannor’s arms. But her hand where she held the Staff was untouched. “I am the High Lord,” she said sternly. “This is Revelstone—Lord’s Keep, not Foul’s Creche. We have sworn the Oath of Peace.”

  At a nod from her, Bannor released Covenant, and he stumbled backward, falling in a heap beside the graveling. He lay on the stone for a moment, gasping harshly. Then he pried himself into a sitting position. His head seemed to droop with defeat. “You’ll get Peace,” he groaned. “He’s going to destroy you all. Did you say forty years? You’ve only got nine left. Or have you forgotten his prophecy?”

  “We know,” Mhoram said quietly. “We do not forget.” With a crooked smile, he bent to examine Covenant’s wound.

  While Mhoram did this, High Lord Elena quenched the blaze of the Staff, and said to a person Covenant could not see, “We must deal with this matter now, if we are to have any hope of the white gold. Have the captive brought here.”

  Lord Mhoram mopped Covenant’s forehead gently, peered at the cut, then stood and moved away to consult with someone. Left alone, with most of the blood out of his eyes, Covenant brought his throbbing gaze into focus to take stock of where he was. Some still-uncowed instinct for self-preservation made him try to measure the hazards around him. He was on the lowest level of the tiered chamber, and its high vaulted and groined ceiling arched over him, lit by the gold glow of the graveling, and by four large smokeless lillianrill torches set into the walls. Around the center of the Close, on the next level, was the three-quarters-round stone council table of the Lords, and above and behind the table were the ranked seats of the gallery. Two Bloodguard stood at the high massive doors, made by Giants to be large enough for Giants, of the main entryway, above and opposite the High Lord’s seat.

  The gallery was diversely filled with warriors of the Wayward of Lord’s Keep, Lorewardens from the Loresraat, several Hirebrands and Gravelingases dressed respectively in their traditional cloaks and tunics, and a few more Bloodguard. High up behind the High Lord sat two people Covenant thought he recognized—the Gravelingas Tohrm, a Hearthrall of Lord’s Keep; and Quaan, the Warhaft who had accompanied the Quest for the Staff of Law. With them were two others—one a Hirebrand, judging by his Woodhelvennin cloak and the circlet of leaves about his head, probably the other Hearthrall; and one the First Mark of the Bloodguard. Vaguely Covenant wondered who had taken that position after the loss of Tuvor in the catacombs under Mount Thunder.

  His gaze roamed on around the Close. Standing at the table were seven Lords, not counting the High Lord and Mhoram. Covenant recognized none of them. They must all have passed the tests and joined the Council in the last forty years. Forty years? he asked dimly. Mhoram had aged, but he did not look forty years older. And Tohrm, who had been hardly more than a laughing boy when Covenant had known him, now seemed far too young for middle age. The Bloodguard were not changed at all. Of course, Covenant groaned to himself, remembering how old they were said to be. Only Quaan showed a believable age: white thinning hair gave the former Warhaft the look of sixty or sixty-five summers. But his square commanding shoulders did not stoop. And the openness of his countenance had not changed; he frowned down on the Unbeliever with exactly the frank disapproval that Covenant remembered.

  He did not see Prothall anywhere. Prothall had been the High Lord during the Quest, and Covenant knew that he had survived the final battle on the slopes of Mount Thunder. But he also knew that Prothall had been old enough to die naturally in forty years. In spite of his pain, he found himself hoping that the former High Lord had died as he deserved, in peace and honor.

  With a sour mental shrug, he moved his survey to the one man at the Lords’ table who was not standing. This individual was dressed like a warrior, with high, soft-soled boots over black leggings, a black sleeveless shirt under a breastplate molded of a yellow metal, and a yellow headband; but on his breastplate were the double black diagonal marks which distinguished him as the Warmark, the commander of the Wayward, the Lords’ army. He was not looking at anyone. He sat back in his stone chair, with his head down and his eyes covered with one hand, as if he were asleep.

  Covenant turned away, let his gaze trudge at random around the Close. High Lord Elena was conferring in low tones with the Lords nearest her. Mhoram stood waiting near the broad stairs leading up to the main doors. The acoustics of the chamber carried the commingled voices of the gallery to Covenant, so that the air was murmurous about his head. He wiped the gathering blood from his brows, and thought about dying.

  It would be worth it, he mused. After all it would be worth it to escape. He was not tough enough to persevere when even his dreams turned against him. He should leave living to the people who were potent for it.

  Ah, hellfire, he sighed. Hellfire.

  Distantly he heard the great doors of the Close swing open. The murmuring in the air stopped at once; everyone turned and looked toward the doors. Forcing himself to spend some of his waning strength, Covenant twisted around to see who was coming.

  The sight struck him cruelly, seemed to take the last rigor out of his bones.

  He watched with bloodied eyes as two Bloodguard came down the stairs, holding upright between them a green-gray creature that oozed with fear. Though they were not handling it roughly, the creature trembled in terror and revulsion. Its hairless skin was slick with sweat. It had a generally human outline, but its torso was unusually long, and its limbs were short, all equal in length, as if it naturally ran on four legs through low caves. But its limbs were bent and useless—contorted as if they had been broken many times and not reset. And the rest of its body showed signs of worse damage.

  Its head was its least human feature. Its bald skull had no eyes. Above the ragged slit of its mouth, in the center of its face, were two wide, wet nostrils that quivered fearfully around the edges as the creature smelled its situation. Its small pointed ears perched high on its skull. And the whole back of its head was gone. Over the gap was a green membrane like a scar, pulsing against the remaining fragment of a brain.

  Covenant knew immediately what it was. He had seen a creature like it once before—whole in body, but dead, lying on the floor of its Waymeet with an iron spike through its heart.

  It was a Waynhim. A Demondim-spawn, like the ur-viles. But unlike their black roynish kindred, the Waynhim had devoted their lore to the services of the Land.

  This Waynhim had been lavishly tortured.

  The Bloodguard brought the creature down to the bottom of the Close, and held it opposite Covenant. Despite his deep weakness, he forced himself to his feet, and kept himself up by leaning against the wall of the next level. Already, he seemed to be regaining some of the added dimension of sight which characterized the Land. He could see into the Waynhim, could feel with his eyes what had been done to it. He saw torment and extravagant pain—saw the healthy body of the Waynhim caught in a fist of malice, and crushed gleefully into this crippled shape. The sight made his eyes hurt. He had to lock his knees to brace himself up. A cold mist of hebetude and despair filled his head, and he was glad for the blood which clogged his eyes; it preserved him from seeing the Waynhim.

  Through his fog, he heard Elena say, “Ur-Lord Covenant, it is necessary to burden you with this sight. We must convince you of our need. Please forgive such a welcome to the Land. The duress of our pli
ght leaves us little choice.

  “Ur-Lord, this poor creature brought us to the decision of your summoning. For years we have known that the Despiser prepares his strength to march against the Land—that the time appointed in his prophecy grows short for us. You delivered that prophecy unto us, and the Lords of Revelstone have not been idle. From the day in which Lord Mhoram brought to Lord’s Keep the Staff of Law and the Second Ward of Kevin’s Lore, we have striven to meet this doom. We have multiplied the Warward, studied our defenses, trained ourselves in all our skills and strengths. We have learned some of the uses of the Staff. The Loresraat has explored with all its wisdom and devotion the Second Ward. But in forty years, we have gained no clear knowledge of Lord Foul’s intent. After the wresting of the Staff from Drool Rockworm, the Despiser’s presence left Kiril Threndor in Mount Thunder, and soon reseated itself in the great thronehall of Ridjeck Thome, Foul’s Creche, the Gray Slayer’s ancient home. And since that time, our scouts have been unable to penetrate Lord Foul’s demesne. Power has been at work there—power and ill—but we could learn nothing of it, though Lord Mhoram himself assayed the task. He could not breach the Despiser’s forbidding might.

  “But there have been dim and dark foreboding movements throughout the Land. Kresh from the east and ur-viles from Mount Thunder, griffins and other dire creatures from Sarangrave Flat, Cavewights, little-known denizens of Lifeswallower, the Great Swamp—we have heard them all wending toward the Spoiled Plains and Foul’s Creche. They disappear beyond the Shattered Hills, and do not return. We need no great wisdom to teach us that the Despiser prepares his army. But still we have lacked clear knowledge. Then at last knowledge came to us. During the summer, our scouts captured this creature, this broken remnant of a Waynhim, on the western edges of Grimmerdhore Forest. It was brought here so that we might try to gain tidings from it.”