South Plains, where the soil is not generous and few people live. There are only five Stonedowns in the South Plains. But in this north-going line of hills live some Woodhelvennin.
“East of the hills are the Plains of Ra.” Her voice sparkled as she went on: 'That is the home of the wild free horses, the Ranyhyn, and their tenders the Ramen. For fifty leagues across the Plains they gallop, and serve none that they do not themselves choose.
“Ah, Thomas Covenant,” she sighed, “it is my dream to see those horses. Most of my people are too content-they do not travel, and have not seen so much as a Woodhelven. But I wish to walk the Plains of Ra, and see the horses galloping.”
After a long pause, she resumed: “These mountains are the Southron Range. Behind them are the Wastes, and the Grey Desert. No life or passage is there; all the Land is north and west and east from us. And we stand on Kevin's Watch, where the highest of the Old Lords stood at the last battle, before the coming of the Desolation. Our people remember that, and avoid the Watch as a place of ill omen. But Atiaran my mother brought me here to teach me of the Land. And in two years I will be old enough to attend the Loresraat and learn for myself, as my mother did. Do you know,” she said proudly, “my mother has studied with the Lorewardens?” She looked at Covenant as if she expected him to be impressed. But then her eyes fell, and she murmured, “But you are a Lord, and know all these things. You listen to my talk so that you may laugh at my ignorance.”
Under the spell of her voice, and the pressure of his vertigo, he had a momentary vision of what the Land must have looked like after Kevin had unleashed the Ritual of Desecration. Behind the luminous morning, he saw hills ripped barren, soil blasted, rank water trickling through vile fens in the riverbed, and over it all a thick gloom of silence-no birds, no insects, no animals, no people, nothing living to raise one leaf or hum or growl or finger against the damage. Then sweat ran into his eyes, blurred them like tears. He pulled away from the view and seated himself again with his back to the wall. “No,” he murmured to Lena, thinking, You don't understand. “I did all my laughing-long ago.”
Now he seemed to see the way to go forward, to flee the dark madness which hovered over him. In that brief vision of Desolation, he found the path of the dream. Skipping transitions so that he would not have to ask or answer certain questions, he said, “I've got to go to the Council of Lords.”
He saw in her face that she wanted to ask him why. But she seemed to feel that it was not her place to question his purpose. His mention of the Council only verified his stature in her eyes. She moved toward the stair. “Come,” she said. “We must go to the Stonedown. There a way will be found to take you to Revelstone.” She looked as if she wanted to go with him.
But the thought of the stair hurt him. How could he negotiate that descent? He could not so much as look over the parapet without dizziness. When Lena repeated, “Come,” he shook his head. He lacked the courage. Yet he had to keep himself active somehow. To Lena's puzzlement, he said, “How long ago was this Desolation?”
“I do not know,” she replied soberly. “But the people of the South Plains came back across the mountains from the bare Wastes twelve generations past. And it is said that they were forewarned by High Lord Kevin-they escaped, and lived in exile in the wilderness by nail and tooth and
He hardly heard her; he was not specifically interested in what she said. But he needed the sound of her voice to steady him while he searched himself for strength. With an effort, he found another question he could ask. Breathing deeply, he said, “What were you doing in the mountains-why were you up where you could see me here?”
“I was stone-questing,” she answered. “I am learning
“No,” he said between breaths. “Tell me.”
'It is a craft I am learning from Acence my mother's sister, and she learned it from Tomal, the best Craftmaster in the memory of our Stonedown. He also studied for a time in the Loresraat. But
“Sometimes, when I am very brave, I smooth a roughness to make the joining of the stones steadier. In this way, I remake the broken secrets of the Earth, and give beauty to the people.”
Vaguely, Covenant murmured, “It must be hard to think of a shape and then find the rocks to fit it.”
“That is not the way. I look at the stones, and seek for the shapes that are already in them. I do not ask the Earth to give me a horse. The craft is in learning to see what it is the Earth chooses to offer. Perhaps it will be a horse.”
“I would like to see your work.” Covenant paid no attention to what he was saying. The stairs beckoned him like the seductive face of forgetfulness, in which lepers lost their self-protective disciplines, their hands and feet, their lives.
But he was dreaming. The way to endure a dream was to flow with it until it ended. He had to make that descent in order to survive. That need outweighed all other considerations.
Abruptly, convulsively, he hauled himself to his feet. Planting himself squarely in the centre of the circle, he ignored the mountain and the sky, ignored the long fall below him, and gave himself a thorough examination. Trembling, he probed his still living nerves for aches or twinges, scanned his clothing for snags, rents, inspected his numb hands.
He had to put that stair behind him.
He could survive it because it was a dream-it could not kill him-and because he could not stand all this darkness beating about his ears.
“Now, listen,” he snapped at Lena. “I've got to go first. And don't give me that confused look. I told you I'm a leper. My hands and feet are numb-no feeling. I can't grip. And I'm-not very good at heights. I might fall. I don't want you below me. You-” He balked, then went on roughly, “You've been decent to me, and I haven't had to put up with that for a long time.”
She winced at his tone. “Why are you angry? How have I offended you?”
By being nice to me! he rasped silently. His face was grey with fear as he turned, dropped to his hands and knees, and backed out through the gap.
In the first rush of trepidation, he lowered his feet to the stairs with his eyes closed. But he could not face the descent without his eyes; the leper's habit of watching himself, and the need to have all his senses alert, were too strong. Yet with his eyes open the height made his head reel. So he strove to keep his gaze on the rock in front of him. From the first step, he knew that his greatest danger lay in the numbness of his feet. Numb hands made him feel unsure of every grip, and before he had gone fifty feet he was clenching the edges so hard that his shoulders began to cramp. But he could see his hands, see that they were on the rock, that the aching in his wrists and elbows was not a lie. His feet he could not see-not unless he looked down. He could only tell that his foot was on a stair when his ankle felt the pressure of his weight. In each downward step he lowered himself onto a guess. If he felt an unexpected flex in his arch, he had to catch himself with his arms and get more of his foot onto the unseen stair. He tried kicking his feet forward so that the jar of contact would tell him when his toes were against the edge of the next stair; but when he misjudged, his shins or knees struck the stone corners, and that sharp pain nearly made his legs fold.
Climbing down stair by stair, staring at his hands with sweat streaming into his eyes, he cursed the fate which had cut away two of his fingers-two fingers less to save himself with if his feet failed. In addition, the absence of half his hand made him feel that his right hold was weaker than his left, that his weight was pulling leftward off the stair. He kept reaching his feet to the right to compensate, and kept missing the stairs on that side.
He could not get the sweat out of his eyes. It stung him like blindness, but he feared to release one hand to wipe his forehead, feared even to shake his head because he might lose his balance. Cramps tormented his back and shoulders. He had to grit his teeth to keep from crying for help.
As if she sensed his distress, Lena shouted, “Halfway!”
He crept on downward, step by step.
Helplessly, he felt himself moving faster. His muscles were failing-the strain on his knees and elbows was too great and with each step he had less control over his descent. He forced himself to stop and rest, though his terror
