The Illearth War

doors they rest, forgetting the cares of the Land. The High Lord honours you greatly in speaking to you here. Without Staff or guard, she greets you as a friend in her sole private place. Ur-Lord, you are not a foe of the Land. But you give little respect. Respect this.”

He held Covenant's gaze for a moment as if to enforce his words. Then he went and knocked at the door.

When the High Lord opened her door, Covenant saw her clearly for the first time. She had put aside her blue Lord's robe, and instead wore a long, light brown Stonedownor shift with a white pattern woven into the shoulders. A white cord knotted at her waist emphasized her figure, and her thick hair, a rich brown with flashes of pale honey, fell to her shoulders, disguising the pattern there. She appeared younger than he had expected-he would have said that she was in her early thirties at most-but her face was strong, and the white skin of her forehead and throat knew much about sternness and discipline, though she smiled almost shyly when she saw Covenant.

But behind the experience of responsibility and commitment in her features was something strangely evocative. She seemed distantly familiar, as if in. the background of her face she resembled someone he had once known. This impression was both heightened and denied by her eyes. They were grey like his own; but though they met him squarely they had an elsewhere cast, a disunion of focus, as if she were watching something else-as if some other, more essential eyes, the eyes of her mind, were looking somewhere else. Her gaze touched parts of him which had not responded for a long time.

“Please enter,” she said in a voice like a clear spring.

Moving woodenly, Covenant went past her into her rooms, and she shut the door behind him, closing out the light from the courtyard. Her antechamber was illumined simply by a pot of graveling in each corner. Covenant stopped in the centre of the room, and looked about him. The space was bare and unadorned, containing nothing but the graveling, a few stone chairs, and a table on which stood a white carving; but still the room seemed quiet and comfortable. The light gave this effect, he decided. The warm graveling glow made even flat stone companionable, enhanced the essential security of Revelstone. It was like being cradled-wrapped in the arms of the rock and cared for.

High Lord Elena gestured toward one of the chairs. “Will you sit? There is much of which I would speak with you.”

He remained standing, looking away from her. Despite the room's ambience, he felt intensely uncomfortable. Elena was his summoner, and he distrusted her. But when he found his voice, he half surprised himself by expressing one of his most private concerns. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Bannor knows more than he's telling.”

He caught her off guard. “More?” she echoed, groping. “What has he said that leaves more concealed?”

But he had already said more than he intended. He kept silent, watching her out of the corner of his sight.

“The Bloodguard know doubt,” she went on unsurely. “Since Kevin Landwaster preserved them from the Desecration and his own end, they have felt a distrust of their own fidelity-though none would dare to raise any accusation against them. Do you speak of this?”

He did not want to reply, but her direct attention compelled him. “They've already lived too long. Bannor knows it.” Then, to escape the subject, he went over to the table to look at the carving. The white statuette stood on an ebony base. It was a rearing Ranyhyn mare made of a material that looked like bone. The work was blunt of detail, but through some secret of its art it expressed the power of the great muscles, the intelligence of the eyes, the oriflamme of the guttering mane.

Without approaching him, Elena said, “That is my craft-marrowmeld. Does it please you? It is Myrha, the Ranyhyn that bears me.”

Something stirred in Covenant. He did not want to think about the Ranyhyn, but he thought that he had found a discrepancy. “Foamfollower told me that the marrowmeld craft had been lost.”

“So it was. I alone in the Land practice this Ramen craft. Anundivian yajna, also named marrowmeld or bone-sculpting, was lost to the Ramen during their exile in the Southron Range-during the Ritual of Desecration. I do not speak in pride-I have been blessed in many things. When I was a child, a Ranyhyn bore me into the mountains. For three days we did not return, so that my mother thought me dead. But the Ranyhyn taught me much-much- In my learning, I recovered the ancient craft. The lore to reshape dry bones came to my hands. Now I practice it here, when the work of the Lords wearies me.”

Covenant kept his back to her, but he was not studying her sculpture. He was listening to her voice as if he expected it to change at any moment into the voice of someone he knew. Her tone resonated with implicit meanings. But he could not make them out. Abruptly, he turned to meet her eyes. Again, though she faced him, she seemed to be looking at or thinking about something else, something beyond him. Her elsewhere glance disturbed him. Studying her, his frown deepened until he wore the healing of his forehead like a crown of thorns.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Will you sit?” she said quietly. “There is much I would speak of with you.”

“Like what?”

The hardness of his tone did not make her flinch, but she spoke more quietly still. “I hope to find a way to win your help against the Despiser.”

Thinking self-contemptuous thoughts, he retorted, “How far are you willing to go?”

For an instant, the other focus of her eyes came close to him, touched him like a lick of fire. Blood rushed to his face, and he almost recoiled a step-so strongly did he feel for that instant that she had the capacity to go far beyond anything he could imagine. But the glimpse passed before he could guess at what it was. She turned unhurriedly away, went briefly into one of her other rooms. When she returned, she bore in her hands a wooden casket bound with old iron.

Holding the casket as if it contained something precious, she said, ''The Council has been much concerned in this matter. Some said, `Such a gift is too great for anyone. Let it be kept and safe for as long as we may be able to endure.' And others said, `It will fail of its purpose, for he will believe that we seek to buy his aid with gifts. He will be angered against us, and will refuse.' So spoke Lord Mhoram, whose knowledge of the Unbeliever is more than any other's. But I said, `He is not our foe. He gives us no aid because he cannot give aid. Though he holds the white gold, its use is beyond him or forbidden him. Here is a weapon which surpasses us. It may be that he will be able to master it, and that with such a weapon he will help us, though he cannot use the white gold.'

'After much thought and concern, my voice prevailed. Therefore the Council asks to give you this gift, so that its power will not lie idle, but will turn against the Despiser.

“Ur-Lord Covenant, this is no light offering. Forty years ago, it was not in the possession of the Council. But the Staff of Law opened doors deep in Revelstone — doors which had been closed since the Desecration. The Lords hoped that these chambers contained other Wards of Kevin's Lore-but no Wards were there. Yet among many things of forgotten use or little power this was found-this which we offer to you.”

She pressed curiously on the sides of the casket, and the lid swung open, revealing a cushioned velvet interior, on which lay a short silver sword. It was a two edged blade, with straight guards and a ribbed hilt; and it was forged around a clear white gem, which occupied the junction of the blade, guards, and hilt. This gem looked strangely lifeless; it reflected no light from the graveling, as if it were impervious or dead to any ordinary flame.

With awe in her low voice, Elena said, “This is the krill of Loric Vilesilencer son of Damelon son of Berek. With this he slew the Demondim guise of moksha Raver, and delivered the Land from the first great peril of the ur-viles. Ur-Lord Covenant, Unbeliever and Ringthane, will you accept it?”

Slowly, full of a leper's fascinated dread of things that cut, Covenant lifted the krill from its velvet rest. Hefting it, he found that its balance pleased his hand, though his two fingers and thumb could not grip it well. Cautiously, he tested its edges with his thumb. They were as dull as if they had never been honed as dull as the white gem. For a moment, he stood still, thinking that a knife did not need to be sharp to harm him.

“Mhoram was right,” he said out of the dry, lonely hebetude of his heart. “I don't want any gifts. I've had more gifts than I can bear.”

Gifts! It seemed to him that everyone he had ever known in the Land had tried to give him gifts- Foamfollower, the Ranyhyn, — Lord Mhoram, even Atiaran. The Land itself gave him an impossible nerve-health.