The Illearth War

inconsistent. Something I don't recognize.

“Here we are climbing through the mountains, where anything could happen. We're following Amok who knows where, even though we've got next to no idea what he's doing, never mind why he's doing it. And you're satisfied that the High Lord is safe when she's only got two Bloodguard to protect her. Didn't you learn anything from Kevin?”

“We are the Bloodguard,” answered Bannor stolidly. “She is safe-as safe as may be.”

“Safe?” Covenant protested.

“A score or a hundredscore Bloodguard would not make her more safe.”

“I admire your confidence.”

Covenant winced at his own sarcasm, paused for a moment to reconsider his questions. Then he lowered his head as if he meant to batter Bannor's resistance down with his forehead, and said bluntly, “Do you trust Amok?”

“Trust him, ur-Lord?” Bannor's tone hinted that the question was inane in some way. “He has not led us into hazard. He has chosen a good way through the mountains. The High Lord elects to follow him. We do not ask for more.”

Still Covenant felt the lurking presence of something unexplained. “I tell you, it doesn't fit,” he rasped in irritation. 'Listen. It's a little late in the day for these inconsistencies. I've sort of given up-they don't do me any good anymore. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather hear something that makes sense.

“Bannor, you-Bear with me. I can't help noticing it. First there was something I don't understand, something-out of pitch-about the way you Bloodguard reacted to Amok when he came to Revelstone. You-I don't know what it was. Anyway, at Revelwood you didn't exactly jump to help Troy when he caught Amok. And after that-only two Bloodguard! Bannor, it doesn't make sense.”

Bannor was unmoved. “She is the High Lord. She holds the Staff of Law. She is easily defended.”

That answer foiled Covenant. It did not satisfy him, but he could think of no way around it. He did not know what he was groping for. His intuition told him that his questions were significant, but he could not articulate or justify them in any utile way. And he reacted to Bannor's trenchant blankness as if it were some kind of touchstone, a paradoxically private and unavoidable criterion of rectitude. Bannor made him aware that there was something not altogether honest about his own accompaniment of the High Lord.

So he withdrew from Bannor, returned his attention to Elena. She had had no better luck with Amok, and her air of escape as she turned toward Covenant matched his. They rode on together, hiding their various anxieties behind light talk of mutual commiseration.

Then, during the eleventh evening of their sojourn in the mountains, she expressed an opinion to him. As if the guess were hazardous, she said, “Amok leads us to Melenkurion Skyweir. The Seventh Ward is hidden there.” And the next day-the eighteenth since they had left Revelwood, and the twenty-fifth since the War Council of the Lords-the rhythm of their trek was broken.

The day dawned cold and dull, as if the sunlight were clogged with grey cerements. A troubled smell shrouded the air. Torn fragments of wind flapped back and forth across the camp as Elena and Covenant ate their breakfast, and far away they could hear a flat, detonating sound like the retort of balked canvas on unlashed spars. Covenant predicted a storm. But the First Mark shook his head in flat denial, and Elena said, “This is not the weather of storms.” She glanced warily up at the peaks as she spoke. “There is pain in the air. The Earth is afflicted.”

“What's happening?” A burst of wind scattered Covenant's voice, and he had to repeat his question at a shout to make himself heard. “Is Foul going to hit us here?”

The wind shifted and lapsed; she was able to answer normally. “Some ill has been performed. The Earth has been assaulted. We feel its revulsion. But the distance is very great, and time has passed. I feel no peril directed toward us. Perhaps the Despiser does not know what we do.” In the next breath, her voice hardened. “But he has used the Illearth Stone. Smell the air! There has been malice at work in the Land”

Covenant began to sense what she meant. Whatever amassed these clouds and roiled this wind was not the impassive natural violence of a storm. The air seemed to carry inaudible shrieks and hints of rot, as if it were blowing through the aftermath of an atrocity. And on a subliminal level, almost indiscernible, the high bluff crags seemed to be shuddering.

The atmosphere made him feel a need for haste. But though her face was set in grim lines, the High Lord did not hurry. She finished her meal, then carefully packed the food and graveling away before calling to Myrha. When she mounted, she summoned Amok.

He appeared before her almost at once, and gave her a cheerful bow. After acknowledging him with a nod, she asked him if he could explain the ill in the air.

He shook his head, and said, “High Lord, I am no oracle.” But his eyes revealed his sensitivity to the atmosphere; they were bright, and a sharp gleam lurking behind them showed for the first time that he was capable of anger. A moment later, however, he turned his face away, as if he did not wish to expose any private part of himself. With a flourishing gesture, he beckoned for the High Lord to follow him.

Covenant swung into his mount's clingor saddle, and tried to ignore the brooding ambience around him. But he could not resist the impression that the ground under him was quivering. Despite all his recent experience, he was still not a confident rider-he could not shed his nagging distrust of horses-and he worried that he might fulfil the prophecy of his height fear by falling off his mount.

Fortunately, he was spared cliff ledges and exposed trails. For some time, Amok's path ran along the spine of a crooked rift between looming mountain walls. The enclosed valley did not challenge Covenant's uncertain horsemanship. But the muffled booming in the air continued to grow. As morning passed, the sound became clearer, echoed like brittle groans off the sheer walls.

Early in the afternoon, Amok led the riders around a final bend. Beyond it, they found an immense landslide. Great, scalloped wounds stood opposite each other high in the walls, and the jumbled mass of rock and scree which had fallen from both sides was piled up several hundred feet above the valley floor.

It completely blocked the valley.

This was the source of the detonations. There was no movement in the huge fall; it had an old look, as if its formation had been forgotten long ago by the mountains. But tortured creaks and cracks came from within it as if its bones were breaking.

Amok walked forward, but the riders halted. Morin studied the blockage for a moment, then said, “It is impassable. It breaks. Perhaps on foot we might attempt it at its edges. But the weight of the Ranyhyn will begin a new fall.” Amok reached the foot of the slide, and beckoned, but Morin said absolutely, “We must find another passage.”

Covenant looked around the valley. “How long will that take?”

“Two days. Perhaps three.”

“That bad? You would think this trip wasn't long enough already. Are you sure that isn't safe? Amok hasn't made any mistakes yet.”

“We are the Bloodguard,” Morin said.

And Bannor explained, 'This fall is younger than Amok.'

“Meaning it wasn't here when he learned his trail? Damnation!” Covenant muttered. The landslide made his desire for haste keener.

Amok came back to them with a shade of seriousness in his face. “We must pass here,” he said tolerantly, as if he were explaining something to a recalcitrant child.

Morin said, “The way is unsafe.”

“That is true,” Amok replied. “There is no other.” Turning to the High Lord, he repeated, “We must pass here.”

While her companions had been speaking, Elena had gazed speculatively up and down the landfall. When Amok addressed her directly, she nodded her head, and responded, “We will.”

Morin protested impassively, “High Lord”

“I have chosen,” she answered, then added, “It may be that the Staff of Law can hold the fall until we have passed it.”

Morin accepted this with an emotionless nod. He took his mount trotting back away from the slide, so that the High Lord would have room in which to work. Bannor and Covenant followed. After a moment, Amok joined