The Wounded Land

roughly to her. She picked up the tray and carried it into his suite.

He stopped her inside the doorway, took the new tray and handed her the old one, then dismissed her. He wanted her to have a chance to report Vain's presence to the na-Mhoram. It was a small revenge, but he took it. Her hood concealed her face, so that he could not see her reaction. But she left with alacrity.

Muttering darkly, he sat down to breakfast.

Shortly after he finished, there was a knock at his door. He thrust the slab of stone open, and was disappointed to find Akkasri alone outside.

“Halfhand,” she said in a muffled tone, “you have asked for knowledge concerning the Clave's resistance of the Sunbane. The na-Mhoram commands me to serve you. I will guide you to the place where our work is wrought and explain it as best I may.”

This was not what Covenant had expected. “Where's Gibbon?”

“The na-Mhoram,” replied Akkasri, stressing Gibbon's title, “has many duties. Though I am only na-Mhoram- cro, I can answer certain inquiries. Gibbon na-Mhoram will attend you, if I do not suffice to your need.”

Oh, hell, he growled. But he concealed his disconcertion. “We'll see. I've got a lot of questions.” He stepped out into the hallway, held the door open for Vain. “Let's go.”

At once, Akkasri moved off down the passage, ignoring Vain completely. This struck Covenant as unnatural; the Demondim-spawn was not easily discounted. Perhaps she had been told what to do? Then his revenge had not been wasted.

His nerves tightened. Striding at Akkasri's side, he began his search for comprehension by asking bluntly, “What's a na-Mhoram-cro?”

“Halfhand,” the woman said without giving him a glimpse of her face, “the na-Mhoram-cro are the novices of the Clave. We have been taught much, but have not yet mastered the rukh sufficiently to become Riders. When we have gained that skill, we will be na-Mhoram-wist. And with much experience and wisdom, some of us will advance to become the hands of the na-Mhoram himself, the na-Mhoram-in. Such is Memla, who bore you to Revelstone. She is greatly honoured for her courage and sagacity.”

“If you're a novice,” he demanded, “how much can you explain?”

“Only Gibbon na-Mhoram holds all the knowledge of the Clave.” Akkasri's tone was tinged with indignation. “But I am unskilled, not ignorant.”

“All right.” With Vain behind them, she led Covenant downward, tending generally toward the central depths of the Keep. “Tell me this. Where did the Clave come from?”

“Halfhand?”

“It hasn't been here forever. Other people used to live in Revelstone. What happened to them? How did the Clave get started? Who started it?”

“Ah.” She nodded. “That is a matter of legend. It is said that many and many generations ago, when the Sunbane first appeared in the sky, the Land was governed by a Council. This Council was decadent, and made no effort to meet the peril. Therefore precious time was lost before the coming of the Mhoram.”

Covenant began to recognize where she was taking him; this was the way to the sacred enclosure. He was faintly surprised by the general emptiness of the halls and passages. But he reflected that Revelstone was huge. Several thousand people could live in it without crowding each other.

“It is his vision which guides us now,” the na-Mhoram-cro was saying. 'Seeing that the Council had fallen to the guile of a-Jeroth, he arose with those few who retained zeal and foresight, and drove out the treachers. Then began the long struggle of our lives to preserve the Land. From the Mhoram and his few has the Clave descended, generation after generation, na-Mhoram to na-Mhoram, seeking ever to consummate his opposition to the Sunbane.

“It is a slow work. We have been slow to master the skill and gain the numbers which we need-and slow as well to muster blood.” She said the word blood with perfect impersonality, as if it cost nothing. “But now we approach the fruition of our long dream. The Sunbane has reached a rhythm of three days-and we hold. We hold, Halfhand!” She claimed pride; but she spoke blandly, as if pride, too, were impersonal. As if she had been carefully groomed to answer Covenant's questions.

But he held his suspicion in abeyance. They walked one of the main hallways along the spine of the Keep; and ahead he could see the passage branching to circle left and right around the outer wall of the sacred enclosure, where the long-dead Lords had held their Vespers of self-consecration to the Land and to Peace.

As he drew closer, he observed that all the many doors, which were regularly spaced around the wall and large enough for Giants, were kept shut. The brief opening as a Rider came out of the enclosure revealed a glimpse of lurid red heat and muffled roaring inside.

The na-Mhoram-cro stopped before one of the doors, addressing Covenant. “Speech is difficult within this place.” He wanted to behold her face; she sounded as if she had evasive eyes. But her hood concealed her visage. If he had not seen Memla and Gibbon, he might have suspected that all the Clave were hiding some kind of deformity. “It is the hall of the Banefire and the master-rukh. When you have seen it, we will withdraw, and I will tell you concerning it.”

He nodded in spite of a sudden reluctance to see what the Clave had done to the sacred enclosure. When Akkasri opened the nearest door, he followed her into a flood of heat and noise.

The place blazed with garish fire. The enclosure was an immense cavity in the gut-rock of Revelstone, a cylinder on end, rising from below the level of the foothills more than halfway up the height of the Keep. From a dais on the floor, the Lords had spoken to the city. And in the walls were seven balconies circling the space, one directly above the next. There the people of Revelstone had stood to hear the Lords.

No more. Akkasri had brought Covenant to the fourth balcony; but even here, at least two hundred feet above the floor, he was painfully close to the fire.

It roared upward from a hollow where the dais had been, sprang yowling and raging almost as high as the place where he stood. Red flame clawed the air as if the very roots of the Keep were afire. The blast of heat half- blinded him; the fire seemed to scorch his cheeks, crisp his hair. He had to blink away a blur of tears before he could make out any details.

The first thing he saw was the master-rukh. It rested at three points on the rail of this balcony, a prodigious iron triangle. The centre of each arm glowed dull vermeil.

Two members of the Clave stood at each corner of the master- rukh. They seemed impervious to the heat. Their hands gripped the iron, concentrated on it as if the Banefire were a script which they could read by touch. Their faces shone ruddy and fanatical above the flames.

Clearly, this was the place from which the red shaft of Sunbane power leaped to the sun.

The doors at the base of the cavity and around the highest balcony were open, providing ventilation. In the lurid brilliance, Covenant saw the domed ceiling for the first time. Somehow, the Giants had contrived to carve it ornately. Bold figures strode the stone, depicting scenes from the early history of the Giants in the Land: welcome, gratitude, trust. But the fire made the images appear strangely distorted and malefic.

Grinding his teeth, he cast his gaze downward. A movement at the base of the fire caught his attention. He saw now that several troughs had been cut into the floor, feeding the hollow. A figure apparelled like the na- Mhoram-cro approached one of the troughs, carrying two heavy pails which were emptied into the trough. Dark fluid ran like the ichor of Revelstone into the hollow. Almost at once, the Banefire took on a richer texture, deepened toward the ruby hue of blood.

Covenant was suffocating on heat and inchoate passion. His heart struggled in his chest. Brushing past Akkasri and Vain, he hastened toward the nearest corner of the master-rukh.

The people there did not notice him; the deep roar of the flame covered the sound of his boots, and their concentration was intent. He jerked one of them by the shoulder, pulled the individual away from the iron. The person was taller than he-a figure of power and indignation.

Covenant yelled up at the hooded face, “Where's Santonin?”

A man's voice answered, barely audible through the howl of the Banefire. “I am a Reader, not a soothreader!”

Covenant gripped the man's robe. “What happened to him?”

“He has lost his rukh!” the Reader shouted back. “At the command of the na- Mhoram, we have searched for him diligently! If his rukh were destroyed-if he were slain