The Power That Preserves

“Then I will tell you, groveller, that I do not take your ring because the command of my master is too strong. He does not choose that I should have such power. In other times, he did not bind us so straitly, and we were free to work his will in our several ways. But he claims-and- I obey.”

“Try to take it!” Covenant panted. “Be the ruler of the universe yourself. Why should he have it?”

For an instant, he thought he saw something like regret in Triock’s face. But the Raver only snarled, “Because the Law of Death has been broken, and he is not alone. There are eyes of compulsion upon me even now-eyes which may not be defied.” His leer of hunger returned. “Perhaps you will see them before you are slain-before my brother and I tear your living heart from you and eat it in your last sight.”

He laughed harshly, and as if in answer the darkness around the campfire grew thicker. The night blackened like an accumulation of spite, then drew taut and formed discrete figures that came forward. Covenant heard their feet rustling over the cold ground. He whirled, and found himself surrounded by ur-viles.

When their eyeless faces felt his stricken stare, they hesitated for an instant. Their wide, drooling nostrils quivered as they tasted the air for signs of power, evidence of wild magic. Then they rushed forward and overwhelmed him.

Livid red blades wheeled above him like the shattering of the heavens. But instead of stabbing him, they pressed flat against his forehead. Red waves of horror crashed through him. He screamed once and went limp in the grasp of the ur-viles.

Fifteen: “Lord Mhoram’s Victory”

THE exertion of hauling the dead forms from the ground and throwing them at Revelstone had exhausted samadhi Satansfist, drained him until he could no longer sustain that expenditure of force. He had seen High Lord’s Furl torn from its flagpole atop the tower by his Cavewights. He knew he had met at least part of his master’s objective in this assault. While his forces held the tower-while tons of sand blocked the inner gates of the Keep-while winter barrened the upland plateau above Revelstone-the Lords and all their people were doomed. They could not feed themselves within those stone walls indefinitely. If last came to last, the Giant-Raver knew that he could through patience alone make the great Keep into one reeking tomb or crypt. He let his dead collapse into sand.

Yet his failure to burst those inner gates enraged him, made him pant for recompense even though he lacked the strength to assail the walls himself. He was a Raver, insatiable for blood despite the mortal limits of the Giantish body he occupied. And other things compelled him also. There was an implacable coercion in the wind, a demand which brooked no failure, however partial or eventually meaningless.

As the dead fell apart, Satansfist ordered his long-leashed army to the attack.

With a howl that shivered the air, echoed savagely off the carven walls, beat against the battlements like an ululation of fangs and claws and hungry blades, the Despiser’s hordes charged. They swept up through the foothills like a shrill grey flood and hurled themselves at Revelstone.

Lord Foul’s Stone-spawned creatures led the attack-not because they were effective against granite walls and abutments, but because they were expendable. The Raver’s army included twice a hundred thousand of them, and more arrived every day, marching to battle from Foul’s Creche through the Centre Plains. So samadhi used them to absorb the defence of the Keep, thus protecting his Cavewights and ur-viles. Thousands of perverted creatures fell with arrows, spears, javelins jutting from them, but many many thousands more forged ahead. And behind them came the forces which knew how to damage Revelstone.

In moments, the charge hit. Rabid, rockwise Cavewights found crafty holds in the stone, vaulted themselves up onto the lowest battlements and balconies. Mighty ur-vile wedges used their black vitriol to wipe clear the parapets above them, then pounced upward on sturdy wooden ladders brought to the walls by other creatures. Within a short time, Revelstone was under assault all along its south and north faces.

But the ancient Giants who made Lord’s Keep had built well to defend against such an attack. Even the lowest parapets were high off the ground; they could be sealed off, so that the attackers were denied access to the city; they were defended by positions higher still in the walls. And Warmark Quaan had drilled the Warward year after year, preparing it for just this kind of battle. The prearranged defences of the Keep sprang into action instantly as alarms sounded throughout the city. Warriors left secondary tasks and ran to the battlements; relays formed to supply the upper defences with arrows and other weapons; concerted Eoman charged the Cavewights and ur-viles which breached the lower abutments. Then came Lore wardens, Hirebrands, Gravelingases. Lorewardens repulsed the attacks with songs of power, while Hirebrands set fire to the ladders, and Gravelingases braced the walls themselves against the strength of the Cavewights.

As he commanded the struggle from a coign in the upper walls, Quaan soon saw that his warriors could have repulsed this assault if they had not been outnumbered thirty or more to one-if every life in his army had not been so vital, and every life in the Raver’s so insignificant. But the Warward was outnumbered; it needed help. In response to the fragmentary reports which reached him from the Close-reports of fire and power and immense relief-he sent an urgent messenger to summon the Lords to Revelstone’s aid.

The messenger found High Lord Mhoram in the Close, but Mhoram did not respond to Quaan’s call. It only reached the outskirts of his mind, and he held it gently distant, away from himself. When he heard one of the guards explain to the messenger what had transpired in the fire-ruined Close, he let his own awareness of the battle slip away-let all thought of the present danger drop from him, and gave himself to the melding of the Lords.

They sat on the slumped floor around the graveling pit with their staffs on the stone before them-Trevor and Loerya on Mhoram’s left, Amatin on his right. In his trembling hands, the krill blazed in hot affirmation of white gold. Yet he barely saw the light; his eyes were heat-scorched, and he was blinded by tears of release that would not stop. Through the silent contact of the meld, he spread strength about him, and shared knowledge which had burdened him more than he had ever realized. He told his fellow Lords how he had been able to remove the krill from its stone rest, and why now it did not burn his vulnerable flesh.

He could feel Amatin shrink from what he said, feel Trevor shake with a pain that only in part came from his injury, feel Loerya appraise his communication as she might have appraised any new weapon. To each of them, he gave himself; he showed them his conviction, his understanding, his strength. And he held the proof in his hands, so that they could not doubt him. With such evidence shining amid the ravage of the Close, they followed the process which had led him to his secret knowledge and shared the dismay which had taught him to keep it secret.

Finally, Lord Amatin framed her question aloud. It was too large for silence; it required utterance, so that Revelstone itself could hear it. She swallowed awkwardly, then floated words in the untarnished acoustics of the chamber. “So it is we-we ourselves who have-for so many generations the Lords themselves have inured themselves to the power of Kevin’s Lore.”

“Yes, Lord,” Mhoram whispered, knowing that everyone in the Close could hear him.

“The Oath of Peace has prevented-“

“Yes, Lord.”

Her breathing shuddered for a moment. “Then we are lost.”

Mhoram felt the lorn dilemma in her words and stood up within himself, pulling the authority of his High Lordship about his shoulders. “No.”

“Without power, we are lost,” she countered. “Without the Oath of Peace, we are not who we are, and we are lost.”

“Thomas Covenant has returned,” responded Loerya.

Brusquely, Amatin put this hope aside. “Nevertheless. Either he has no power, or his power violates the Peace with which we have striven to serve the Land. Thus also we are lost.”

“No,” the High Lord repeated. “Not lost. We and ur-Lord Covenant-must find the wisdom to attain both Peace and power. We must retain our knowledge of who we are, or we will despair as Kevin Landwaster despaired, in Desecration. Yet we must also retain this knowledge of power, or we will have failed to do our utmost for the Land. Perhaps the future Lords will find that they must turn from Kevin’s Lore-that they must find lore of their own, lore which is not so apt for destruction. We have no time for such a quest. Knowing the peril of this power, we must