Lord Foul's Bane

And that evening, while he made himself a supper of aliantha, he was 'struck again. This time the wrong lashed him so viciously that he passed out for some time. When he regained consciousness, he was lying in Foamfollower's arms like a child. He felt vaguely that he had had convulsions.

“Take off your boots,” Foamfollower urged intently.

Numbness filled Covenant's head like mist, clouded his reactions. But he mustered the lucidity to ask, “Why?”

“Why? Stone and Sea, my friend! When you ask like that, how can I answer? Ask yourself. What do you gain by enduring such wrong?”

“Myself,” he murmured faintly. He wanted simply to recline in the Giant's arms and sleep, but he fought the desire, pushed himself away from Foamfollower until the Giant set him on his feet by Birinair's lillianrill fire. For a moment, he had to cling decrepitly to Foamfollower's arm to support himself, but then one of the warriors gave him his staff, and he braced himself on it. “By resisting.”

But he knew in his bones that he was not resisting. They felt weak, as if they were melting under the strain. His boots had become a hollow symbol for an intransigence he no longer felt.

Foamfollower started to object, but Mhoram stopped him. “It is his choice,” the Lord said softly.

After a while, Covenant fell into feverish sleep. He did not know that he was carried tenderly to bed, did not know that Mhoram watched over him during the night, and saw the bloody stain on his wedding band.

He reached some sort of crisis while he slept, and awoke with the feeling that he had lost, that his ability to endure had reached the final either-or of a toss which had gone against him. His throat was parched like a battleground. When he forced his eyes open, he found himself again prostrated in Foamfollower's arms. Around him, the company was ready to mount for the day's ride.

When he saw Covenant's eyes open, Foamfollower bent over him and said quietly, “I would rather bear you in my arms than see you suffer. Our journey to Lord's Keep was easier for me than watching you now.”

Part of Covenant rallied to look at the Giant. Foamfollower's face showed strain, but it was not the strain of exhaustion. Rather, it seemed like a pressure building up in his mind-a pressure that made the fortress of his forehead appear to bulge. Covenant stared at it dumbly for a long moment before he realized that it was sympathy. The sight of his own pain made Foamfollower's pulse throb in his temples.

Giants? Covenant breathed to himself. Are they all like this? Watching that concentration of emotion, he murmured, “What's a “foamfollower”?

The Giant did not appear to notice the irrelevance of the question. “A “follower” is a compass,” he answered simply. “So “Foamfollower”- “sea-compass”.

Covenant began weakly moving, trying to get out of the Giant's arms. But Foamfollower held him, forbade him in silence to set his feet on the ground.

Lord Mhoram intervened. With grim determination in his voice, he said, “Set him down.”

“Down,” Covenant echoed.

Several retorts passed under Foamfollower's heavy brows, but he only said, “Why?”

“I have decided,” Mhoram replied. “We will not move from this place until we understand what is happening to ur-Lord Covenant. I have delayed this risk too long. Death gathers around us. Set him down.” His eyes flashed dangerously.

Still Foamfollower hesitated until he saw High Lord Prothall nod support for Mhoram. Then he turned Covenant upright and lowered him gently to the ground. For an instant, his hands rested protectively on Covenant's shoulders. Then he stepped back.

“Now, ur-Lord,” said Mhoram. “Give me your hand. We will stand together until you feel the ill, and I feel it through you.”

At that, a coil of weak panic writhed in Covenant's heart. He saw himself reflected in Mhoram's eyes, saw himself standing lornly with what he had lost written in his face. That loss dismayed him. In that tiny, reflected face he perceived abruptly that if the attacks continued he would inevitably learn to enjoy the sense of horror and loathing which they gave him. He had discovered a frontier into the narcissism of revulsion, and Mhoram was asking him to risk crossing over.

“Come,” the Lord urged, extending his right hand. “We must understand this wrong if we are to resist it.”

In desperation or despair, Covenant thrust out his hand. The heels of their palms met; they gripped each other's thumbs. His two fingers felt weak, hopeless for Mhoram's purpose, but the Lord's grasp was sturdy. Hand to hand like combatants, they stood there as though they were about to wrestle with some bitter ghoul.

The attack came almost at once. Covenant cried out, shook as if his bones were gibbering, but he did not leap away. In the first instant, Mhoram's hard grip sustained him. Then the Lord threw his arm around Covenant, clasped him to his, chest: The violence of Covenant's distress buffeted Mhoram, but he held his ground, gritted his embrace.

As suddenly as it had come, the attack passed. With a groan, Covenant sagged in Mhoram's arms.

Mhoram held him up until he moved and began to carry his own weight. Then, slowly, the Lord released him. For a moment, their faces appeared oddly similar; they had the same haunted expression, the same sweat-damp hollow gaze. But shortly Covenant gave a shuddering sigh, and Mhoram straightened his shoulders-and the similarity faded.

“I was a fool,” Mhoram breathed. 'I should have known-That ill is Drool Rockworm, reaching out with the power of the Staff to find you. He can sense pour presence by the touch of your boots on the earth, because they are unlike anything made in the Land. Thus he knows where you are, and so where we are.

“It is my guess that you were untouched the day we crossed the Soulsease because Drool expected us to move toward him on the River, and was searching for us on water rather than on land. But he learned his mistake, and regained contact with you yesterday.”

The Lord paused, gave what he was saying a chance to penetrate Covenant. Then he concluded, “Ur-Lord, for the sake of us all-for the sake of the Land-you must not wear your boots. Drool already knows too much of our movements. His servants are abroad.”

Covenant did not respond. Mhoram's words seemed to sap the last of his strength. The trial had been too much for him; with a sigh he fainted into the Lord's arms. So he did not see how carefully his boots and clothes were removed and packed in Dura's saddlebags-how tenderly his limbs were washed by the I Lords and dressed in a robe of white samite-how sadly his ring was taken from his finger and placed on a new patch of clingor over his heart-how gently he was cradled in Saltheart Foamfollower's arms throughout the long march of that day. He lay in darkness like a sacrifice; he could hear the teeth of his leprosy devouring his flesh. There was a smell of contempt around him, insisting on his impotence. But his lips were bowed in a placid smile, a look of fondness, as if he had come at last to approve his disintegration.

He continued to smile when he awoke late that night and found himself staring into the wide ghoul grin of the moon. Slowly, his smile stretched into a taut grimace, a look of happiness or hatred. But then the moon was blocked out of his vision by Foamfollower's great bulk. The Giant's huge palms, each as large as Covenant's face, stroked his head tenderly, and in time the caress had its effect on him. His eyes lost their ghastly appearance, and his face relaxed, drifted away from torment into repose. Soon he was deep in a less perilous slumber.

The next day-the tenth of the Quest-he awoke calmly, as if he were held in numb truce or stasis between irreconcilable demands. A feeling of affectlessness pervaded him, as if he no longer had the heart to care about himself. Yet he was hungry. He ate a large breakfast, and remembered to thank the Woodhelvennin woman who seemed to have assigned herself the task of providing for him. His new apparel he accepted with a rueful shrug, noticing in silent, dim sarcasm how easily after all he was able to shed himself-and how the white robe flattered his gaunt form as if he were born to it. Then, dumbly, he mounted Dura.

His companions watched him as if they feared he would fall. He was weaker than he had realized; he needed most of his concentration to keep his seat, but he was equal to the task. Gradually the Questers began to believe that he was out of danger. Among them, he rode through the sunshine and the warm spring air along the flowered marge of Andelain-rode attenuated and careless, as if he were locked between impossibilities.