The Power That Preserves

his hands and the air around him became so charged with blue force that he appeared to emanate Lords-fire.

Yet while he laboured, wielded his power like a scythe through Satansfist’s ill crop, he kept part of his attention cocked toward the crosswalks. He was watching for Quaan and Amatin.

A short time later, the first crosswalk fell. The battered remnant of an Eoman dashed along it out of the tower, rabidly pursued by Cavewights. Archers sent the Cavewights plunging to the courtyard, and as soon as the warriors were safe, the walk’s cables were cut. The wooden span swung clattering down and crashed against the wall of the tower.

The tumult of battle echoed out of the tower. Abruptly, Warmark Quaan appeared on one of the upper spans. Yelling stridently to make himself heard, he ordered all except the two highest crosswalks cut.

Mhoram shouted up to the Warmark, “Amatin!”

Quaan nodded, ran back into the tower.

The next two spans fell promptly, but the sentries at the third waited. After a moment, several injured warriors stumbled out onto the walk. Supporting each other, carrying the crippled, they struggled toward the Keep. But then a score of Stone-born creatures charged madly out of the tower. Defying arrows and swords, they threw the injured off the span and rushed on across the walk.

Grimly, deliberately, the sentries cut the cables.

Every enemy that appeared in the doorways where the spans had been was killed or beaten back by a hail of fiery arrows. The higher crosswalks fell in swift succession. Only two remained for the survivors in the tower.

Now Lord Trevor was panting dizzily at the High Lord’s side, and Mhoram himself felt weak with strain. But he could not afford to rest. Tohrm’s Gravelingases would not be able to hold the gates alone.

Yet his flame lost its vehemence as the urgent moments passed. Fear for Quaan and Amatin disrupted his concentration. He wanted intensely to go after them. Warriors were escaping constantly across the last two spans, and he watched their flight with dread in his throat, aching to see their leaders.

One more span went down.

He stopped fighting altogether when Quaan appeared alone in the doorway of the last crosswalk.

Quaan shouted across to the Keep, but Mhoram could not make out the words. He watched with clenched breath as four warriors raced toward the Warmark.

Then a blue-robed figure moved behind Quaan — Amatin. But the two made no move to escape. When the warriors reached them, they both disappeared back into the tower.

Stifling in helplessness, Mhoram stared at the empty doorway as if the strength of his desire might bring the two back. He could hear the Raver’s hordes surging constantly upward.

A moment later, the four warriors reappeared. Between them, they carried Hearthrall Borillar.

He dangled in their hands as if he were dead.

Quaan and Amatin followed the four. When they all had gained the Keep, the last crosswalk fell. It seemed to make no sound amid the clamour from the tower.

A mist passed across Mhoram’s sight. He found that he was leaning heavily on Trevor; while he gasped for breath, he could not stand alone. But the Lord upheld him. When his faintness receded, he met Trevor’s gaze and smiled wanly.

Without a word, they turned back to the defence of the gates.

The tower had been lost, but the battle was not done. Unhindered now by Amatin’s fire, the dead were slowly able to push a path through the sand. The weight of their assault began to mount again. And the sensation of wrong that they sent shuddering through the stone increased. The High Lord felt Revelstone’s pain growing around him until it seemed to come from all sides. If he had not been so starkly confronted with these dead, he might have believed that the Keep was under attack at other points as well. But the present need consumed his attention. Revelstone’s only hope lay in burying the gates with sand before they broke.

He sensed Tohrm’s arrival behind him, but did not turn until Quaan and Lord Amatin had joined the Hearthrall. Then he dropped his power and faced the three of them.

Amatin was on the edge of prostration. Her eyes ached in the waifish pallor of her face; her hair stuck to her face in sweaty strands. When she spoke, her voice quivered. “He took a bolt meant for me. Borillar-he- I did not see samadhi’s aim in time.”

A moment passed before Mhoram found the self-mastery to ask quietly, “Is he dead?”

“No. The Healers-he will live. He is a Hirebrand-not defenceless.” She dropped to the stone and slumped against the wall as if the thews which held her up had snapped.

“I had forgotten he was with you,” Mhoram murmured. “I am ashamed.”

” You are ashamed!” The rough croak of Quaan’s voice caught at Mhoram’s attention. The Warmark’s face and arms were smeared with Wood, but he appeared uninjured. He could not meet Mhoram’s gaze. “The tower-lost!” He bit the words bitterly. “It is I who am ashamed. No Warmark would permit- Warmark Hile Troy would have found a means to preserve it.”

“Then find a means to aid us,” Tohrm groaned. “These gates cannot hold.”

The livid desperation in his tone pulled all the eyes on the abutment toward him. Tears streamed down his face as if he would never stop weeping, and his hands flinched distractedly in front of him, seeking something impossible in the air, something that would not break. And the gates moaned at him as if they were witnessing to the truth of his distress.

“We cannot,” he went on. “Cannot. Such force! May the stones forgive me! I am-we are unequal to this stress.”

Quaan turned sharply on his heel and strode away, shouting for timbers and Hirebrands to shore up the gates.

But Tohrm did not seem to hear the Warmark. His wet gaze held Mhoram as he whispered, “We are prevented. Something ill maims our strength. We do not comprehend-High Lord, is there other wrong here? Other wrong than weight and dead violence? I hear-all Revelstone’s great rock cries out to me of evil.”

High Lord Mhoram’s senses veered, and he swung into resonance with the gut-rock of the Keep as if he were melding himself with the stone. He felt all the weight of samadhi’s dead concentrated as if it were impending squarely against him; he felt his own soul gates groaning, detonating, cracking. For an instant, like an ignition of prophecy, he became the Keep, took its life and pain into himself, experienced the horrific might which threatened to rend it-and something else, too, something distinct, private, terrible. When he heard frantic feet clattering toward him along the main hall, he knew that Tohrm had glimpsed the truth.

One of the two men Mhoram had sent to watch over Trell dashed forward, jerked to a halt. His face was as white as terror, and he could hardly thrust words stuttering through his teeth.

“High Lord, come! He! — the Close! Oh, help him!”

Amatin covered her head with her arms as if she could not bear any more. But the High Lord said, “I hear you. Remember who you are. Speak clearly.”

The man gulped sickly several times. “Trell-you sent-he immolates himself. He will destroy the Close.”

A hoarse cry broke from Tohrm, and Amatin gasped, “Melenkurion!” Mhoram stared at the warrior as if he could not believe what he had heard. But he believed it; he felt the truth of it. He was appalled by the dreadful understanding that this knowledge also had come too late. Once again, he had failed of foresight, failed to meet the needs of the Keep. Spun by irrefusable exigencies, he wheeled on Lord Trevor and demanded, “Where is Loerya?”

For the first time since his rescue, Trevor’s exaltation wavered. He stood in his own blood as if his injury had no power to hurt him, but the mention of his wife pained him like a flaw in his new courage. “She,” he began, then stopped to swallow thickly. “She has left the Keep. Last night-she took the children upland-to find a place of hiding. So that they would be safe.”

“By the Seven!” Mhoram barked, raging at all his failures rather than at Trevor. “She is needed!” Revelstone’s situation was desperate, and neither Trevor nor Amatin were in any condition to go on fighting. For an instant, Mhoram felt that the dilemma could not be resolved, that he could not make these decisions for the Keep. But he was Mhoram son of Variol, High Lord by the choice of the Council. He had said to the warrior: Remember who you are. He had said it to Tohrm. He was High Lord Mhoram, incapable of surrender. He struck the stone with his staff so that its iron heel rang, and sprang to his work.

“Lord Trevor, can you hold the gates?”

Trevor met Mhoram’s gaze. “Do not fear, High Lord. If they can be held, I will hold them.”