Lord Foul's Bane

Covenant shrugged noncommittally. He felt a twinge of anxiety at the thought of her questions, and braced himself to try to answer them without losing his new balance.

In the pause, Lena began moving around the room. She went to the shelves to get plates and bowls for the table, and prepared some dishes on a slab of stone heated from underneath by a tray of graveling. She turned her eyes toward Covenant often as she moved, but he did not always notice. Atiaran compelled his attention.

At first, she murmured uncertainly, “I hardly know where to begin. It has been so long, and I learned so little of what the Lords know. But what I have must be enough. No one here can take my place.” She straightened her shoulders. “May I see your hands?”

Remembering Lena's initial reaction to him, Covenant held up his right hand.

Atiaran moved around the table until she was close enough to touch him, but did not. Instead, she searched his face. 'Halfhand. It is as Trell said. And some say that Berek Earthfriend, Heartthew and Lord Fatherer, will return to the Land when there is need. Do you know these things?'

Covenant answered gruffly, “No.”

Still looking into his face, Atiaran said, “Your other hand?”

Puzzled, he raised his left. She dropped her eyes to it.

When she saw it, she gasped, and bit her lip and stepped back. For an instant, she seemed inexplicably terrified. But she mastered herself, and asked with only a low tremble in her voice, “What metal is that ring?”

“What? This?” Her reaction startled Covenant, and in his surprise he gaped at a complicated memory of Joan saying, With this ring I thee wed, and the old ochre-robed beggar replying, Be true, be true. Darkness threatened him. He heard himself answer as if he were someone else, someone who had nothing to do with leprosy and divorce, “It's white gold.”

Atiaran groaned, clamped her hands over her temples as if she were in pain. But again she brought herself under control, and a bleak courage came into her eyes. “I alone,” she said, “I alone in Mithil Stonedown know the meaning of this. Even Trell has not this knowledge. And I know too little. Answer, Thomas Covenant-is it true?”

I should've thrown it away, he muttered bitterly. A leper's got no right to be sentimental.

But Atiaran's intensity drew his attention toward her again. She gave him the impression that she knew more about what was happening to him than he did that he was moving into a world which, in some dim, ominous way, had been made ready for him. His old anger mounted. “Of course it's true,” he snapped. “What's the matter with you? It's only a ring.”

“It is white gold.” Atiaran's reply sounded as forlorn as if she had just suffered a bereavement.

“So what?” He could not understand what distressed the woman. “It doesn't mean a thing. Joan-” Joan had preferred it to yellow gold. But that had not prevented her from divorcing him.

“It is white gold,” Atiaran repeated. 'The Lords sing an ancient lore-song concerning the bearer of white gold. I remember only a part of it, thus:

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.

Do you know the song, Covenant? There is no white gold in the Land. Gold has never been found in the Earth, though it is said that Berek knew of it, and made the songs. You come from another place. What terrible purpose brings you here?'

Covenant felt her searching him with her eyes for some flaw, some falsehood which would give the lie to her fear. He stiffened. You have might, the Despiser had said, wild magic-You will never know what it is. The idea that his wedding band was some kind of talisman nauseated him like the smell of attar. He had a savage desire to shout. None of this is happening! But he only knew of one workable response: don't think about it, follow the path, survive. He met Atiaran on her own ground. “All purposes are terrible. I have a message for the Council of Lords.”

“What message?” she demanded.

After only an instant's hesitation, he grated, “The Grey Slayer has come back.”

When she heard Covenant pronounce that name, Lena dropped the stoneware bowl she was carrying, and fled into her mother's arms.

Covenant stood glowering at the shattered bowl. The liquid it had contained gleamed on the smooth stone floor. Then he heard Atiaran pant in horror, “How do you know this?” He looked back at her, and saw the two women clinging together like children threatened by the demon of their worst dreams. Leper outcast unclean! he thought sourly. But as he watched, Atiaran seemed to grow solider. Her jaw squared, her broad glance hardened. For all her fear, she was a strong woman comforting her child-and bracing herself to meet her danger. Again she asked, “How do you know?”

She made him feel defensive, and he replied, “I met him on Kevin's Watch.”

“Ah, alas!” she cried, hugging Lena. “Alas for the young in this world! The doom of the Land is upon them. Generations will die in agony, and there will be war and terror and pain for those who live! Alas, Lena my daughter. You were born into an evil time, and there will be no peace or comfort for you when the battle comes. Ah, Lena, Lena.”

Her grief touched an undefended spot in Covenant, and his throat thickened. Her voice filled his own image of the Land's Desolation with a threnody he had not heard before. For the first time, he sensed that the Land held something precious which was in danger of being lost.

This combination of sympathy and anger tightened his nerves still further. He vibrated to a sharper pitch, trembled. When he looked at Lena, he saw that a new awe of him had already risen above her panic. The unconscious offer in her eyes burned more disturbingly than ever.

He held himself still until Atiaran and Lena slowly released each other. Then he asked, “What do you know about all this? About what's happening to me?”

Before Atiaran could reply, a voice called from outside the house, “Hail! Atiaran Tiaran-daughter. Trell Gravelingas tells us that your work is done for this day. Come and sing to the Stonedown!”

For a moment, Atiaran stood still, shrinking back into herself. Then she sighed, “Ah, the work of my life has just begun,” and turned to the door. Holding aside the curtain, she said into the night, “We have not yet eaten. I will come later. But after the gathering I must speak with the Circle of elders.”

“They will be told,” the voice answered.

“Good,” said Atiaran. But instead of returning to Covenant, she remained in the doorway, staring into the darkness for a while. When she closed the curtain at last and faced Covenant, her eyes were moist, and they held a look that he at first thought was defeat. But then he realized that she was only remembering defeat. “No, Thomas Covenant,” she said sadly, 'I know nothing of your fate. Perhaps if I had remained at the Loresraat longer-if I had had the strength. But I passed my limit there, and came home. I know a part of the old Lore that Mithil Stonedown does not guess, but it is too little. All that I can remember for you are hints of a wild magic which destroys peace-

wild magic graven in every rock,

contained for white gold to unleash or control

but the meaning of such lines, or the courses of these times, I do not know. That is a double reason to take you to the Council.“ Then she looked squarely into his face, and added, ”I tell you openly, Thomas Covenant-if you have come to betray the Land, only the Lords may hope to stop you.'

Betray? This was another new thought. An instant passed before he realized what Atiaran was suggesting. But before he could protest, Lena put in for him, “Mother! He fought a grey cloud on Kevin's Watch. I saw it. How