big a debt-The first time I stood on the top of Revelwood and looked over the valley where the Rill and Llurallin rivers come together the first time in my life that I had ever seen-the first time, Covenant, I had ever even known that such sights existed-I swore I was going to win this war for the Land. Lacking missiles and bombs, there are other ways to fight. It took me a little while to convince the Lords-just long enough for me to outsmart all the best tacticians in the Wayward. Then they made me their Warmark. Now I'm just about ready. A difficult strategic problem-we're too far from the best line of defence, Landsdrop. And I haven't heard from my scouts. I don't know which way Foul is going to try to get at us. But I can beat him in a fair fight. I'm looking forward to it.
“Go back? No. Never.”
Hile Troy had been speaking in a level tone, as if he did not want to expose his emotions to his auditor. But Covenant could hear an undercurrent of enthusiasm in the words-a timbre of passion too unruly to be concealed.
Now Troy leaned toward Covenant intently, and his ready indignation came back into his voice. “In fact, I can't understand you at all. Do you know that this whole place”-he indicated Revelstone with a brusque gesture-'revolves around you? White gold. The wild magic that destroys peace. The Unbeliever who found the Second Ward and saved the Staff of Law-unwillingly, I hear. For forty years, the Loresraat and the Lords have worked for a way to get you back. Don't get me wrong-they've done everything humanly possible to try to find other ways to defend the Land They've built up the Warward, racked their brains over the Lore, risked their necks on things like Mhoram's trip to Foul's Creche. And they're scrupulous. They insist that they accept your ambivalent position. They insist that they don't expect you to save them. All they want is to make it possible for the wild magic to aid the Land, so they won't have to reproach themselves for neglecting a possible hope. But I tell you-they don't believe there is any hope but you.
'You know Lord Mhoram. You should have some idea of just how tough that man is. He's got backbone v he hasn't even touched yet. Listen. He screams in` his sleep. His dreams are that bad. I heard him once. He-I asked him the next morning what possessed him. In that quiet, kind voice of his, he told me that the Land would die if you didn't save it.
“Well, I don't believe that Mhoram or no A Mhoram. But he isn't the only one. High Lord Elena eats, drinks, and sleeps Unbeliever. Wild magic and white gold, Covenant Ringthane. Sometimes I think r she's obsessed. She-”
But Covenant could not remain silent any longer.: He could not stand to be held responsible for so much commitment. Roughly, he cut in, “Why?”
“I don't know. She doesn't even know you.”
“No. I mean, why is she High Lord-instead of Mhoram?”
“What does it matter?” said Troy irritably. “The Council chose her. A couple of years ago-when Osondrea, the old High Lord, died. They put their, minds together-you must have noticed when you were here before how the Lords can pool their thoughts, think together-and she was elected.” As he spoke, the irritation faded from his tone. 'They e said she has some special quality, some inner mettle that makes her the best leader for this war. Maybe I don't know what they mean-but I know she's got something. She's impossible to refuse. I would fight with stew forks and soup spoons against Foul
“So I don't understand you. You may be the last man alive who's seen the Celebration of Spring. And there she stands, looking like all the allure of the Land put together-practically begging you. And you!” Troy struck the table with his hand, brandished his empty sockets at Covenant. “You refuse.”
Abruptly, he slapped his sunglasses back on, and flung away from the table to pace the room again, as if he could not sit still in the face of Covenant's perversity.
Covenant watched him, seething at the freedom of Troy's judgment-the trust he placed in his own rectitude. But Covenant had heard something else in Troy's voice, a different explanation. Probing bluntly, he asked, “Is Mhoram in love with her, too?”
At that, Troy spun, pointed a finger rigid with accusation at the Unbeliever. “You know what I think? You're too cynical to see the beauty here. You're too cheap. You've got it made in your `real' world, with all those royalties rolling in. So what if you're sick? That doesn't stop you from getting rich. Coming here just gets in the way of hacking out more best-sellers. Why should you fight the Despiser? You're just like him yourself.”
Before the Warmark could go on, Covenant rasped thickly, “Get out. Shut up and get out.”
“Forget it. I'm not going to leave until you give me one-”
“Get out.”
“-one good reason for the way you're acting. I'm not going to walk away and let you destroy the Land just because the Lords are too scrupulous to lean on you.”
“That's enough!” Covenant was on his feet. His hurt blazed up before he could catch hold of himself. “Don't you even know what a leper is?”
“What difference does that make? It's no worse than not having any eyes. Aren't you healthy here?”
Mustering all the force of his injury, his furious grief, Covenant averred, “No!” He waved his hands.
“Do you call this health? It's a lie!”
That cry visibly stunned Troy. The black assertion of his sunglasses faltered; the inner aura of his spirit was confused by doubt. For the first time, he looked: like a blind man.
“I don't understand,” he said softly.
He faced the onslaught of Covenant's glare for a; moment longer. Then he turned and left the room, moving quietly, as if he had been humbled.
Six: The High Lord
WHEN evening came, Thomas Covenant sat on his balcony to watch the sun set behind the Westron Mountains. Though summer was hardly past, there was a gleam of white snow on many of the peaks. As, the sun dropped behind them, the western sky shone with a sharing of cold and fire. White silver reflected; from the snow across the bottom of a glorious sky, an orange-gold gallant display sailing with full canvas over the horizon.
Covenant watched it bleakly. A scowl knotted his forehead like a fist. He had spent the afternoon in useless rage, but after a time his anger at Troy had died down among the embers of his protest against being summoned to the Land. Now he felt cold at heart, desolate and alone. The resolve he had expressed to Mhoram, his determination to survive; seemed pretentious-fey and anile. And the frown.' clenched his forehead as if the flesh over his skull refused to admit that it had been healed.
He was thinking of jumping from the balcony. To quell his fear of heights, he would have to wait until, the darkness of the night was complete, and he could no longer see the ground. But considered in that way, the idea both attracted and repelled him. It offended his leper's training, heaped ridicule on everything he had already endured to cling to life. It spoke of a defeat-that was as bitter as starkest gall to him. But he yearned for relief from his dilemma. He felt as dry as a wasteland, and rationalizations came easily. Chiefest of these was the argument that since the Land was not real it could not kill him; a death here would only force him back into the reality that was the only thing in which he could believe. In his aloneness, he could not tell whether that argument expressed courage or cowardice.
Slowly, the last of the sun fell behind the mountains, and its emblazonry faded from the sky. Gloaming spread out of the shadow of the peaks, dimming the plains below Covenant until he could only discern them as uneasy, recumbent shapes under the heavens. The stars came out and grew gradually brighter, as if to clarify trackless space; but the voids between them were too great, and the map they made was unreadable. In his dusty, unfertile gaze, they seemed to twinkle unconsolably.
When he heard the polite knock at his door, his need for privacy groaned at the intrusion. But he had other needs as well. He pushed himself to go answer the knock.
The stone door swung open easily on noiseless hinges, and light streamed into the room from the bright-lit hall, dazzling him so that for a moment he did not recognize either of the men outside. Then one of them said, “Ur- Lord Covenant, we bid you welcome,” in a voice that seemed to bubble with good humour. Covenant identified
