Lord Foul's Bane

reason behind Mhoram's question. The Lord wanted to hear him talk, wanted his voice to reveal his truth or falsehood. Mhoram's ears could discern the honesty or irrectitude of the answer.

Covenant glanced at the memory of Foul's message, then turned away in self-defence. “No-I'll save it for the Council. Once is enough for such things. My tongue'll turn to sand if I have, to say it twice.”

Mhoram nodded as if in acceptance. But almost immediately he asked, “Does your message account for the befouling of the moon?”

Instinctively, Covenant looked out over his balcony.

There, sailing tortuously over the horizon like a plague ship, was the bloodstained moon. Its glow rode the plains like an incarnadine phantasm. He could not keep the shudder out of his voice as he replied. “He's showing off-that's all. Just showing us what he can do.” Deep in his throat, he cried, Hellfire! Foul! The Wraiths were helpless! What do you do for an encore, rape children?

“Ah,” Lord Mhoram groaned, “this comes at a bad time.” He stepped away from his seat and pulled a wooden partition shut across the entrance to the balcony. 'The Warward numbers less than two thousand. The Bloodguard are only five hundred-a pittance for any task but the defence of Revelstone. And there are only five Lords. Of those, two are old, at the limit of their strength, and none have mastered more than the smallest part of Kevin's First Ward. We are weaker than any other Earthfriends in all the ages of the Land. Together we can hardly make scrub grass grow in Kurash Plenethor.

“There have been more,” he explained, returning to his seat, “but in the last generation nearly all the best at the Loresraat have chosen the Rites of Unfettering. I am the first to pass the tests in fifteen years. Alas, it is in my heart that we will want other power now.” He clenched his staff until his knuckles whitened, and for a moment his eyes did not conceal his sense of need.

Gruffly, Covenant said, “Then tell your friends to brace themselves. You're not going to like what I've got to say.”

But Mhoram relaxed slowly, as if he had not heard Covenant's warning. One finger at a time, he released his grip until the staff lay untouched in his lap. Then he smiled softly. “Thomas Covenant, I am not altogether reasonless when I assume that you are not an enemy. You have a lillianrill staff and a rhadhamaerl knife-yes, and the staff has seen struggle against a strong foe. And I have already spoken with Saltheart Foamfollower. You have been trusted by others. I do not think you would have won your way here without trust.”

“Hellfire!” retorted Covenant. “You've got it backward.” He threw his words like stones at a false image of himself. “They coerced me into coming. It wasn't my idea. I haven't had a choice since this thing started.” With his fingers he touched his chest to remind himself of the one choice he did have.

“Unwilling,” Mhoram replied gently. 'So there is good reason for calling you `Unbeliever.' Well, let it pass. We will hear your tale at the Council tomorrow.

“Now. I fear I have given your questions little opportunity. But the time for Vespers has come. Will you accompany me? If you wish we will speak along the way.”

Covenant nodded at once. In spite of his weariness, he was eager for a chance to be active, keep his thoughts busy. The discomfort of being interrogated eras only a little less than the distress of the questions he wanted to ask about white gold. To escape his complicated vulnerabilities, he stood up and said, “Lead the way.”

The Lord bowed in acknowledgment, and at once preceded Covenant into the corridor outside his room. There they found Bannor. He stood against the wall near the door with his arms folded stolidly across his chest, but he moved to join them as Mhoram and Covenant entered the passageway. On an impulse, Covenant intercepted him. He met Bannor's gaze, touched the Bloodguard's chest with one rigid finger, and said, “I don't trust you either.” Then he turned in angry satisfaction back to the Lord.

Mhoram paused while Bannor went into Covenant's room to pick up one of the torches. Then the Bloodguard took a position a step behind Covenant's left shoulder, and Lord Mhoram led them down the corridor. Soon Covenant was lost again; the complexities of the tower confused him as quickly as a maze. But in a short time they reached a hall which seemed to end in a dead wall of stone. Mhoram touched the stone with an end of his staff, and it swung inward, opening over the courtyard between the tower and the main Keep. From this doorway, a crosswalk stretched over to a buttressed coign.

Covenant took one look at the yawning gulf of the courtyard, and backed away. “No,” he muttered, “forget it. I'll just stay here if you don't mind.” Blood rushed like shame into his face, and a rivulet of sweat ran coldly down his back. “I'm no good at heights.”

The Lord regarded him curiously for a moment, but did not challenge his reaction. “Very well,” he said simply. “We will go another way.”

Sweating half in relief, Covenant followed as Mhoram retraced part of their way, then led a complex descent to one of the doors at the base of the tower. There they crossed the courtyard.

Then for the first time Covenant was in the main body of Revelstone.

Around him, the Keep was brightly lit with torches and graveling. Its walls were high and broad enough for Giants, and their spaciousness contrasted strongly with the convolution of the tower. In the presence of so much wrought, grand and magisterial granite, such a weight of mountain rock spanning such open, illuminated halls, he felt acutely his own meagreness, his mere frail mortality. Once again, he sensed that the makers of Revelstone had surpassed him.

But Mhoram and Bannor did not appear meagre to him. The Lord strode forward as if these halls were his natural element, as if his humble flesh flourished in the service of this old grandeur. And Bannor's personal solidity seemed to increase, as if he bore within him something that almost equalled Revelstone's permanence. Between them, Covenant felt half disincarnate, void of some essential actuality.

A snarl jumped across his teeth, and his shoulders hunched as he strangled such thoughts. With a grim effort, he forced himself to concentrate on the superficial details around him.

They turned down a hallway which went straight but for gradual undulations, as if it were carved to suit the grain of the rock-into the heart of the mountain. From it, connecting corridors branched out at various intervals, some cutting directly across between cliff and cliff, and some only joining the central hall with the outer passages. Through these corridors, a steadily growing number of men and women entered the central hall, all, Covenant guessed, going toward Vespers. Some wore the breastplates and headbands of warriors; others, Woodhelvennin and Stonedownor garb with which Covenant was familiar. Several struck him as being related in some way to the lillianrill or rhadhamaerl; but many more seemed to belong to the more prosaic occupations of running a city-cooking, cleaning, building, repairing, harvesting. Scattered through the crowd were a few Bloodguard. Many of the people nodded and beamed respectfully at Lord Mhoram, and he returned salutations in all directions, often hailing his greeters by game. But behind him, Bannor carried the torch and walked as inflexibly as if he were alone in the Keep.

As the throng thickened, Mhoram moved toward the wall on one side, then stopped at a door. Opening he turned to Bannor and said, “I must join the High Lord. Take Thomas Covenant to a place among the people in the sacred enclosure.” To Covenant, he added, “Bannor will bring you to the Close at the proper time tomorrow.” With a salute, he left Covenant with the Bloodguard.

Now Bannor led Covenant ahead through Revelstone. After some distance, the hall ended, split at right angles to arc left and right around a wide wall, and into this girdling corridor the people poured from all directions. Doors large enough to admit Giants marked the curved wall at regular intervals; through them the people passed briskly, but without confusion or jostling.

On either side of each door stood a Gravelingas and a Hirebrand; and as Covenant neared one of the doors, he heard the door wardens intoning, “If there is ill in your heart, leave it here. There is no room for it within.” Occasionally one of the people reached out and touched a warder as if handing over a burden.

When he reached the door, Bannor gave his torch to the Hirebrand. The Hirebrand quenched it by humming a snatch of song and closing his hand over the flame. Then he returned the rod to Bannor, and the Bloodguard entered the enclosure with Covenant behind him.

Covenant found himself on a balcony circling the inside of an enormous cavity. It held no lights, but illumination streamed into it from all the open doors, and there were six more balconies above the one on which Covenant stood, all accessed by many open doors. He could see clearly. The balconies stood in vertical tiers, and below them, more than a hundred feet down, was the fiat bottom of the cavity. A dais occupied one side, but the