The Illearth War

since yesterday. That Unfettered One-drained me. Some food would be very nice.”

The opportunity to do something for Covenant gave Mhoram a feeling of relief. Moving promptly, he brought his guest a flask of springwine. Covenant drank as if he were trying to break an inner drought, and Mhoram went to his back rooms to find some food.

While he was placing bread and cheese and grapes on a tray, he heard a sharp, distant shout; a voice cried his name with an urgency that smote his heart. He set the tray down, hastened to throw open the door of his chambers.

In the sudden wash of light from the courtyard, he saw a warrior standing in one of the coigns high above him. The warrior was a young man-too young for war meat, Mhoram thought grimly-who had lost command of himself. “Lord Mhoram!” he blurted. “Come! Now! The Close!”

“Stop.” The authority in Mhoram's tone caught the young man like a bit. He winced, stiffened, forced down a chaotic tumult of words. Then he recovered his self-possession. Seeing this, the Lord said more gently, “I hear you. Speak.”

“The High Lord asks that you come to the Close at once. A messenger has come from the Plains of Ra. The Grey Slayer is marching.”

“War?” Mhoram spoke softly to conceal a sharp prevision of blood.

“Yes, Lord Mhoram.”

“Please say to the High Lord that that I have heard you.”

Bearing himself carefully, Mhoram turned back toward Covenant. The Unbeliever met his gaze with a hot, oddly focused look, as if his skull were splitting between his eyes. Mhoram asked simply, “Will you come?”

Covenant gripped the Lord's gaze, and said, “Tell me something, Mhoram. How did you get away when that Raver caught you-near Foul's Creche?”

Mhoram answered with a conscious serenity, a refusal of dismay, which looked like danger in his gold-flecked eyes. “The Bloodguard with me were slain. But when samadhi Raver touched me, he knew me as I knew him. He was daunted.”

For a moment, Covenant did not move. Then he dropped his glance. Wearily, he set the stoneware flask on the table, pushed it over so that it clicked against the krill. He tugged momentarily at his beard, then pulled himself to his feet. To Mhoram's gaze, he looked like a thin candle clogged with spilth — guttering, frail, and portionless.

“Yes,” he said. “Elena asked me the same thing. For all the good it'll do any of us. I'm coming.”

Awkwardly, he shambled out onto the burning floor.

PART II The Warmark

Eleven: War Council

HILE TROY was sure of one thing; despite whatever Covenant said, the Land was no dream. He perceived this with an acuteness which made his heart ache.

In the “real” world, he had not been simply blind, he had been eyeless from birth. He lacked even the organs of sight which could have given him a conception of what vision was. Until the mysterious event which had snatched him from between opposing deaths, and had dropped him on the sunlit grass of Trothgard, light and dark had been equally incomprehensible to him. He had not known that he lived in immitigable midnight. The tools with which he had handled his physical surroundings had been hearing and touch and language. His sense of ambience, his sensitivity to the auras of objects and the resonances of space, was translated by words until it became his sole measure of the concrete world. He had been a good strategist precisely because his perceptions of space and interacting force were pure, undistracted by any knowledge of day or night or colour or brilliance or illusion.

Therefore he could not be imagining the Land. His former mind had not contained the raw materials out of which such dreams were made. When he appeared in the Land-when Lord Elena taught him that the rush of sensations which confused him was sight the experience was altogether new. It did not restore to him something that he had lost. It opened in front of him like an oracle.

He knew that the Land was real.

And he knew that its future hung by the thread of his strategy in this war. If he made a mistake, then more brightness and colour than he could ever take into account were doomed.

So when Ruel, the Bloodguard assigned to watch over him, came to him in his quarters and informed him that a Ramen Manethrall had arrived from the Plains of Ra, bringing word of Lord Foul's army, Troy felt an instant of panic. It had begun-the test of all his training, planning, hopes. If he had believed Mhoram's tales of a Creator, he would have dropped to his knees to pray.

But he had never learned to rely on anyone but himself. The Wayward and the strategy were his; he was in command. He paused just long enough to strap the traditional ebony sword of the Warmark to his waist and don his headband. Then he followed Ruel toward the Close.

As he moved, he was grateful for the brightness of the torches in the hallways. Even with their help, his sight was dim. In daylight, he could see clearly, with more grasp of detail and more distance than the far-eyed Giants. The sun brought distant things close to him; at times, he felt that he possessed more of the Land than anyone else. But night restored his blindness like an insistent reminder of where he had come from. While the sun was down, he was lost without torches or fires. Starlight did not touch his private darkness, and even a full moon cast no more than a grey smudge across his mind.

Sometimes in the middle of the night, his sightlessness scared him like a repudiation of sunlight and vision.

By force of habit, he adjusted his sunglasses. He had worn them for so long, out of consideration for the people with eyes who had to look at him, that they felt like a part of his face. But he never saw them; they had no effect on his vision. Nothing that came within six inches of his orbless sockets blocked his mental sight at all.

To control his tension, he strode toward the Close without hurrying. At one point, a group of Hafts, the commanders of Eoward, saluted him and then jogged ahead with their swords clattering; and later Lord Verement came hawklike down a broad staircase and rushed past him. But he did not vary his step until he reached the high doors of the council chamber. There he found Quaan waiting for him.

The sight of the old stalwart Hiltmark gave him a pang. In this dim light, Quaan's thin white hair made him look frail. But he saluted Troy briskly, and reported that all fifty Hafts were now in the Close.

Fifty. Troy recited the numbers to himself as if he were repeating a rite of command: Fifty Eoward, one thousand Eoman; a total of twenty-one thousand fifty warriors; First Haft Amorine, Hiltmark Quaan, and himself. He nodded as if to assure Quaan that they would be enough. Then he marched down into the Close to take his seat at the Lords' table.

Around him, the chamber was almost filled, and most of the leaders were in their chairs. The space was so well-lit that now he could see clearly. The High Lord sat with quiet intensity at the head of the table; and between her and him were Callindrill, Trevor, Loerya, and Amatin, each keeping a private silence. But Troy knew them, and could guess something of their thoughts. Lord Loerya hoped despite the demands of her Lordship that she and Trevor would not be chosen to leave Revelstone and her daughters. And her husband seemed to be remembering that he had fallen under the strain of fighting the ill in dukkha Waynhim-remembering, and wondering if he had the strength for this war.

About Elena, Troy did not speculate. Her beauty confused him; he did not want to think that something might happen to her in this war. Deliberately, he kept his gaze away from her.

On her left beyond Mhoram's empty chair was Lord Verement and two more unoccupied seats places for the Lords Shetra and Hyrim. For a moment, Troy paused to wonder how Korik's mission was doing. Four days after their