Thomas Covenant 01: Lord Foul's Bane

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  This affirmation produced a pause, during which tie Lords looked at each other as if they had reached an impasse. Then High Lord Prothall said sternly, “Thomas Covenant, you are a stranger, and we have had no time to learn your ways. But we will not surrender our sense of what is right to you. It is clear that you have spoken falsehood. For the sake of the Land, you must answer our questions. Please tell us why the Hirebrand Baradakas gave to you the test of truth, but not to Atiaran your companion.”

  “No.”

  “Then tell us why Atiaran Trell-mate chose not to accompany you here. It is rare for a person born of the Land to stop short of Revelstone.”

  “No.”

  “Why do you refuse?”

  Covenant glared seething up at his interrogators. They sat above him like judges with the power of outcasting in their hands. He wanted to defend himself with shouts, curses; but the Lords’ intent eyes stopped him. He could see no contempt in their faces. They regarded him with anger, fear, disquietude, with offended love for the Land, but no contempt. Very softly, he said, “Don’t you understand? I’m trying to get out of telling you an even bigger lie. If you keep pushing me—we’ll all suffer.”

  The High Lord met his irate, supplicating gaze for a moment, then sighed catarrhally, “Very well. You make matters difficult for us. Now we must deliberate. Please leave the Close. We will call for you in a short time.”

  Covenant stood, turned on his heel, started up the steps toward the big doors. Only the sound of his boots against the stone marked the silence until he had almost reached the doors. Then he heard Foamfollower say as clearly as if his own heart uttered the words, “Atiaran Trell-mate blamed you for the slaughter of the Wraiths.”

  He froze, waiting in blank dread for the Giant to continue. But Foamfollower said nothing more. Trembling, Covenant passed through the doors and moved awkwardly to sit in one of the chairs along the wall. His secret felt so fragile within him that he could hardly believe it was still intact.

  I am not—

  When he looked up, he found Bannor standing before him. The Bloodguard’s face was devoid of expression, but it did not seem uncontemptuous. Its flat ambiguity appeared capable of any response, and now it implied a judgment of Covenant’s weakness, his disease.

  Impelled by anger and frustration, Covenant muttered to himself, Keep moving. Survive. “Bannor,” he growled, “Mhoram seems to think we should get to know each other. He told me to ask you about the Bloodguard.”

  Bannor shrugged as if he were impervious to any question.

  “Your people—the Haruchai”—Bannor nodded—“live up in the mountains. You came to the Land when Kevin was High Lord. How long ago was that?”

  “Centuries before the Desecration.” The Bloodguard’s alien tone seemed to suggest that units of time like years and decades had no significance. “Two thousand years.”

  Two thousand years. Thinking of the Giants, Covenant said, “That’s why there’s only five hundred of you left. Since you came to the Land you’ve been dying off.”

  “The Bloodguard have always numbered five hundred. That is the Vow. The Haruchai—are more.” He gave the name a tonal lilt that suited his voice.

  “More?”

  “They live in the mountains as before.”

  “Then how do you—You say that as if you haven’t been back there for a long time.” Again Bannor nodded slightly. “How do you maintain your five hundred here? I haven’t seen any—”

  Bannor interrupted dispassionately. “When one of the Bloodguard is slain, his body is sent into the mountains through Guards Gap, and another of the Haruchai comes to take his place in the Vow.”

  Is slain? Covenant wondered. “Haven’t you been home since? Don’t you visit your—Do you have a wife?”

  “At one time.”

  Bannor’s tone did not vary, but something in his inflectionlessness made Covenant feel that the question was important. “At one time?” he pursued. “What happened to her?”

  “She has been dead.”

  An instinct warned Covenant, but he went on, spurred by the fascination of Bannor’s alien, inflexible solidity. “How—how long ago did she die?”

  Without a flicker of hesitation, the Bloodguard replied, “Two thousand years.”

  What! For a long moment, Covenant gaped in astonishment, whispering to himself as if he feared that Bannor could hear him, That’s impossible. That’s impossible. In an effort to control himself, he blinked dumbly. Two—? What is this?

  Yet in spite of his amazement, Bannor’s claim carried conviction. That flat tone sounded incapable of dishonesty, of even misrepresentation. It filled Covenant with horror, with nauseated sympathy. In sudden vision he glimpsed the import of Mhoram’s description, made by their pledged loyalty ascetic, womanless, and old. Barren—how could there be any limit to a barrenness which had already lasted for two thousand years? “How,” he croaked, “how old are you?”

  “I came to the Land with the first Haruchai, when Kevin was young in High Lordship. Together we first uttered the Vow of service. Together we called upon the Earthpower to witness our commitment. Now we do not return home until we have been slain.”

  Two thousand years, Covenant mumbled. Until we have been slain. That’s impossible. None of this is happening. In his confusion, he tried to tell himself that what he heard was like the sensitivity of his nerves, further proof of the Land’s impossibility. But it did not feel like proof. It moved him as if he had learned that Bannor suffered from a rare form of leprosy. With an effort, he breathed, “Why?”

  Flatly Bannor said, “When we came to the Land, we saw wonders—Giants, Ranyhyn, Revelstone—Lords of such power that they declined to wage war with us lest we be destroyed. In answer to our challenge, they gave to the Haruchai gifts so precious—” He paused, appeared to muse for a moment over private memories. “Therefore we swore the Vow. We could not equal that generosity in any other way.”

  “Is that your answer to death?” Covenant struggled with his sympathy, tried to reduce what Bannor said to manageable proportions. “Is that how things are done in the Land? Whenever you’re in trouble you just do the impossible? Like Berek?”

  “We have sworn the Vow. The Vow is life. Corruption is death.”

  “But for two thousand years?” Covenant protested. “Damnation! It isn’t even decent. Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”

  Without expression, the Bloodguard replied, “You cannot corrupt us.”

  “Corrupt you? I don’t want to corrupt you. You can go on serving those Lords until you wither for all I care. I’m talking about your life, Bannor! How long do you go on serving without just once asking yourself if it’s worth it? Pride or at least sanity requires that. Hellfire!” He could not conceive how even a healthy man remained unsuicidal in the face of so much existence. “It isn’t like salad dressing—you can’t just spoon it around. You’re human. You weren’t born to be immortal.”

  Bannor shrugged impassively. “What does immortality signify? We are the Bloodguard. We know only life or death—the Vow or Corruption.”

  An instant passed before Covenant remembered that Corruption was the Bloodguard name for Lord Foul. “Then he groaned, “Well of course I understand. You live forever because your pure, sinless service is utterly and indomitably unballasted by any weight or dross of mere human weakness. Ah, the advantages of clean living.”

  “We do not know.” Bannor’s awkward tone echoed strangely “Kevin saved us. How could we guess what was in his heart? He sent us all into the mountains—into the mountains. We questioned, but he gave the order. He charged us by our Vow. We knew no reason to disobey. How could we know? We would have stood by him at the Desecration—stood by or prevented. But he saved us—the Bloodguard. We who swore to preserve his life at any cost.”

  Saved, Covenant breathed painfully. He could feel the unintended cruelty of Kevin’s act. “So now you don’t know whether all these years of living are right or wrong,” he said dist
antly. How do you stand it? “Maybe your Vow is mocking you.”

  “There is no accusation which can raise its finger against us,” Bannor averred. But for an instant his dispassion sounded a shade less immaculate.

  “No, you do all that yourself.”

  In response, Bannor blinked slowly, as if neither blame nor exculpation carried meaning to the ancient perspective of his devotion.

  A moment later, one of the sentries beckoned Covenant toward the Close. Trepidation constricted his heart. His horrified sympathy for Bannor drained his courage; he did not feel able to face the Lords, answer their demands. He climbed to his feet as if he were tottering, then hesitated. When Bannor motioned him forward, he said in a rush, “Tell me one more thing. If your wife were still alive, would you go to visit her and then come back here? Could you—” He faltered. “Could you bear it?”

  The Bloodguard met his imploring gaze squarely, but thoughts seemed to pass like shadows behind his countenance before he said softly, “No.”

  Breathing heavily as if he were nauseated, Covenant shambled through the door and down the steps toward the yellow immolation of the graveling pit.

  Prothall, Mhoram, and Osondrea, Foamfollower, the four Bloodguard, the four spectators—all remained as he had left them. Under the ominous expectancy of their eyes, he seated himself in the lone chair below the Lords’ table. He was shivering as if the fire-stones radiated cold rather than heat.

  When the High Lord spoke, the age rattle in his voice seemed worse than before. “Thomas Covenant, if we have treated you wrongly we will beg your pardon at the proper time. But we must resolve our doubt of you. You have concealed much that we must know. However, on one matter we have been able to agree. We see your presence in the Land in this way.

  “While delving under Mount Thunder, Drool Rockworm found the lost Staff of Law. Without aid, he would require many years to master it. But Lord Foul the Despiser learned of Drool’s discovery, and agreed for his own purposes to teach the Cavewight the uses of the Staff. Clearly he did not wrest the Staff from Drool. Perhaps he was too weak. Or perhaps he feared to use a tool not made for his hand. Or perhaps he has some terrible purpose which we do not grasp. But again it is clear that Lord Foul induced Drool to use the Staff to summon you to the Land—only the Staff of Law has such might. And Drool could not have conceived or executed that task without deep-lored aid. You were brought to the Land at Lord Foul’s behest. We can only pray that there were other powers at work as well.”

  “But that does not tell us why,” said Mhoram intently. “If the carrying of messages were Lord Foul’s only purpose, he had no need of someone from beyond the Land—and no need to protect you from Drool, as he did when he bore you to Kevin’s Watch, and as I believe he attempted to do by sending his Raver to turn you from your path toward Andelain. No, you are our sole guide to the Despiser’s true intent. Why did he call someone from beyond the Land? And why you? In what way do you serve his designs?”

  Panting, Covenant locked his jaws and said nothing.

  “Let me put the matter another way,” Prothall urged. “The tale you have told us contains evidence of truth. Few living know that the Ravers were at one time named Herein, Sheol, and Jehannum. And we know that one of the Unfettered has been studying the Wraiths of Andelain for many years.”

  Unwillingly Covenant remembered the hopeless courage of the animals that had helped the Unfettered One to save him in Andelain. They had hurled themselves into their own slaughter with desperate and futile ferocity. He gritted his teeth, tried to close his ears to the memory of their dying.

  Prothall went on without a pause, “And we know that the lomillialor test of truth is sure—if the one tested does not surpass the tester.”

  “But the Despiser also knows,” snapped Osondrea. “He could know that an Unfettered One lived and studied in Andelain. He could have prepared this tale and taught it to you. If he did,” she enunciated darkly, “then the matters on which you have refused to speak are precisely those on which your story would fail. Why did the Hirebrand of Soaring Woodhelven test you? How was the testing done? Who have you battled with that staff? What instinct turned Atiaran Trell-mate against you? You fear to reply because then we will see the Despiser’s handiwork.”

  Authoritatively High Lord Prothall rattled, “Thomas Covenant, you must give us some token that your tale is true.”

  “Token?” Covenant groaned.

  “Give us proof that we should trust you. You have uttered a doom upon our lives. That we believe. But perhaps it is your purpose to lead us from the true defense of the Land. Give us some token, Unbeliever.”

  Through his quavering, Covenant felt the impenetrable circumstance of his dream clamp shut on him, deny every desire for hope or independence. He climbed to his feet, strove to meet the crisis erect. As a last resort, he grated to Foamfollower, “Tell them. Atiaran blamed herself for what happened to the Celebration. Because she ignored the warnings. Tell them.”

  He burned at Foamfollower, willing the Giant to support his last chance for autonomy, and after a grave moment the Giant said, “My friend Thomas Covenant speaks truth, in his way. Atiaran Trell-mate believed the worst of herself.”

  “Nevertheless!” Osondrea snapped. “Perhaps she blamed herself for guiding him to the Celebration—for enabling—Her pain does not approve him.” And Prothall insisted in a low voice, “Your token, Covenant. The necessity for judgment is upon us. You must choose between the Land and the Land’s Despiser.”

  Covenant, help them!

  “No!” he gasped hoarsely, whirling to face the High Lord. “It wasn’t my fault. Don’t you see that this is just what Foul wants you to do?”

  Prothall stood, braced his weight on his staff. His stature seemed to expand in power as he spoke. “No, I do not see. You are closed to me. You ask to be trusted, but you refuse to show trustworthiness. No. I demand the token by which you refuse us. I am Prothall son of Dwillian, High Lord by the choice of the Council. I demand.”

  For one long instant, Covenant remained suspended in decision. His eyes fell to the graveling pit. Covenant, help them! With a groan, he remembered how much Atiaran had paid to place him where he stood now. Her pain does not approve. In counterpoint he heard Bannor saying, Two thousand years. Life or death. We do not know. But the face he saw in the fire-stones was his wife’s. Joan! he cried. Was one sick body more important than everything?

  He tore open his shirt as if he were trying to bare his heart. From the patch of clingor on his chest, be snatched his wedding band, jammed it onto his ring finger, raised his left fist like a defiance. But he was not defiant. “I can’t use it!” he shouted lornly, as if the ring were still a symbol of marriage, not a talisman of wild magic. “I’m a leper!”

  Astonishment rang in the Close, clanging changes in the air. The Hearthralls and Garth were stunned. Prothall shook his head as if he were trying to wake up for the first time in his life. Intuitive comprehension broke like a bow wave on Mhoram’s face, and he snapped to his feet in stiff attention. Grinning gratefully, Foamfollower stood as well. Lord Osondrea also joined Mhoram, but there was no relief in her eyes. Covenant could see her shouldering her way through a throng of confusions to the crux of the situation—could see her thinking, Save or damn, save or damn. She alone among the Lords appeared to realize that even this token did not suffice.

  Finally the High Lord mastered himself. “Now at list we know how to honor you,” he breathed. “Ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and white gold Wider, be welcome and true. Forgive us, for we did not know. Yours is the wild magic that destroys peace. And power is at all times a dreadful thing.” The Lords saluted Covenant as if they wished to both invoke and ward against him, then together began to sing:

  There is wild magic graven in every rock,

  contained for white gold to unleash or control—

  gold, rare metal, not born of the Land,

  nor ruled, limited, subdued

  by the Law with w
hich the Land was created

  (for the Land is beautiful,

  as if it were a strong soul’s dream of peace and

  harmony,

  and Beauty is not possible without discipline—

  and the Law which gave birth to Time

  is the Land’s Creator’s self-control)—

  but keystone rather, pivot, crux

  for the anarchy out of which Time was made,

  and with Time Earth,

  and with Earth those who people it:

  wild magic restrained in every particle of life,

  and unleashed or controlled by gold

  (not born of the Land)

  because that power is the anchor of the arch of

  life

  that spans and masters Time:

  and white—white gold,

  not ebon, ichor, incarnadine, viridian—

  because white is the hue of bone:

  structure of flesh,

  discipline of life.

  This power is a paradox,

  because Power does not exist without Law,

  and wild magic has no Law;

  and white gold is a paradox,

  because it speaks for the bone of life,

  but has no part of the Land.

  And he who wields white wild magic gold

  is a paradox—

  for he is everything and nothing,

  hero and fool,

  potent, helpless—

  and with the one word of truth or treachery

  he will save or damn the Earth

  because he is mad and sane,

  cold and passionate,

  lost and found.

  It was an involuted song, curiously harmonized, with no resolving cadences to set the hearers at rest. And in it Covenant could hear the vulture wings of Foul’s voice saying, You have might, but you will never know what it is. You will not be able to fight me at the last. As the song ended, he wondered if his struggling served or defied the Despiser’s manipulations. He could not tell. But he hated and feared the truth in Foul’s words. He cut into the silence which followed the Lords’ hymning. “I don’t know how to use it. I don’t want to know. That’s not why I wear it. If you think I’m some kind of personified redemption—it’s a lie. I’m a leper.”