The Power That Preserves

battlement, thus trapping the warriors, preventing any escape or rescue. Two Eoman were caught and slaughtered by the ur-viles before Lord Amatin was able to break down one of the Forbiddings.

The same pattern was repeated simultaneously at several points around the Keep.

Warmark Quaan had lost more than eightscore warriors before he grasped the purpose of these tactics. They were not intended to break into Revelstone, but rather to kill defenders.

So the Lords were compelled to bear the brunt of defending against these new assaults; a Forbidding was an exercise of power which only they were equipped to counter. As long as darkness covered the approach of the ur- viles, the attacks continued, allowing the Lords no chance to rest. And when dawn came, Sheol Satansfist resumed the previous strategy of his assault.

After four nights of this, Mhoram and his comrades were near exhaustion. Each Forbidding cost two of them an arduous exertion; one Lord could not counteract the work of three-or fivescore ur-viles swiftly enough. As a result, Amatin was now as pale and hollow-eyed as an invalid; Loerya’s once-sturdy muscles seemed to hang like ropes of mortality on her bones; and Trevor’s eyes flinched at everything he saw, as if even in the deepest safety of the Keep he was surrounded by ghouls. Mhoram himself felt that he had a great weight leaning like misery against his heart. They could all taste the accuracy of Quaan’s dire predictions, and they were sickening on the flavour.

During a brief moment of dazed half-sleep late that fourth night, the High Lord found himself murmuring, “Covenant, Covenant,” as if he were trying to remind the Unbeliever of a promise.

But the next morning the attacks stopped. A silence like the quietude of open graves blew into Revelstone on the wind. All the creatures had returned to their encampment, and in their absence Revelstone panted and quivered like a scourged prisoner between lashes. Mhoram took the opportunity to eat, but he put food into his mouth without seeing it and chewed without tasting it. In the back of his mind, he was trying to measure the remnant of his endurance. Yet he responded immediately when a messenger hastened up to him, informed him that samadhi Raver was approaching the Keep alone.

Protected by flanks of archers from any attack by the enemy occupying the tower, Mhoram and the other Lords went to one of the high balconies near the eastward point of the Keep and faced Satansfist.

The Giant-Raver approached sardonically, with a swagger of confidence and a spring of contempt in his stride. His huge fist gripped his fragment of the Stone, and it steamed frigidly in the freezing air. He stopped just beyond effective bow range, leered up at the Lords, and shouted stertorously, “Hail, Lords! I give you greeting! Are you well?”

“Well!” Quaan grated under his breath. “Let him come five paces nearer, and I will show him ‘well.’ “

“My master is concerned for you!” samadhi continued. “He fears that you have begun to suffer in this unnecessary conflict!”

The High Lord’s eyes glinted at this gibe. “Your master lives for the suffering of others! Do you wish us to believe that he has eschewed Despite?”

“He is amazed and saddened that you resist him. Do you still not see that he is the one word of truth in this misformed world? His is the only strength-the one right. The Creator of the Earth is a being of disdain and cruelty! All who are not folly-blind know this. All who are not cowards in the face of the truth know that Lord Foul is the only truth. Has your suffering taught you nothing? Has Thomas Covenant taught you nothing? Surrender, I say! Give up this perverse and self-made misery-surrender! I swear to you that you will stand as my equals in the service of Lord Foul!”

In spite of his mordant sarcasm, the Raver’s voice carried a strange power of persuasion. The might of the Stone was in his words, compelling his hearers to submit. As samadhi spoke, Mhoram felt that the flesh of his resistance was being carved away, leaving his bare bones exposed to the winter. His throat ached at the taste of abdication, and he had to swallow heavily before he could reply.

“Samadhi Sheol,” he croaked, then swallowed again and focused all his skeletal resolve in his voice. “Samadhi Sheol! You mock us, but we are not mocked. We are not blind-we see the atrocity which underlies your persuasion. Begone! Foul-chattel! Take this army of torment and despication-return to your master. He has made your suffering-let him take joy in it while he can. Even as we stand here, the days of his might are numbered. When his end comes upon him, be certain he will do nothing to preserve your miserable being. Begone, Raver! I have no interest in your cheap taunts.”

He hoped that the Raver would react with anger, do something which would bring him within reach of the archers. But Satansfist only laughed. Barking with savage glee, he turned away and gave a shout that sent his forces forward to renew their assault.

Mhoram turned also, pulled himself painfully around to face his fellow Lords. But they were not looking at him. They were intent on a messenger who stood trembling before them. Fear-sweat slicked his face despite the cold, and the muscles of his throat locked, clenched him silent. Mutely, he reached into his tunic, brought out a cloth bundle. His hands shook as he unwrapped it.

After a febrile moment, he exposed the krill.

Its gem was as dull as death.

Mhoram thought he heard gasps, groans, cries, but he could not be sure. Dread roared in his ears, made other sounds indistinguishable. He snatched up the krill. Staring aghast at it, he fell to his knees, plunged as if his legs had broken. With all the force of his need, he thrust his gaze into the gem, tried to find some gleam of life in it. But the metal was cold to his touch, and the edges of the blade were dull. Blind, lustreless winter filled the furthest depths of the jewel.

The hope of the wild magic was lost. Covenant was gone.

Now Mhoram understood why the Raver had laughed.

“Mhoram?”

“High Lord.”

“Mhoram!”

Supplications reached toward him, asking him for strength, begging him, requiring. He ignored them. He shrugged off the hands of melding which plucked at his mind. The prophecy of his dread had come to pass. He had nothing left with which to answer supplications.

“Ah, High Lord!”

There were tears and despair in the appeals, but he had nothing left with which to answer.

He was only dimly aware that he rose to his feet, returned the krill to the messenger. He wanted it removed from his sight as if it were a treacher, yet that feeling occupied only a distant portion of him. With the rest, he tightened his frail blue robe as if he were still fool enough to believe it could protect him from the cold, and walked numbly away from the battlement. The short, stiff shock of his hair, newly grown after the fire in the Close, gave him a demented aspect. People came after him, beseeching, requiring, but he kept up his wooden pace, kept ahead of them so that he would not have to see their needy faces.

He gave no thought to where he was going until he reached a fork in the passage. There, the weight of decision almost crushed him to his knees again-left and down into the Keep, or right and out toward the upland plateau. He turned to the right because he could not bear the unintended recrimination of Revelstone-and because he was a man who already knew that he had no choice.

When he started up the long ascending road, the people behind him slowed, let him go. He heard them whispering:

“He goes to the Unfettered One-to the interpreter of dreams.”

But that was not where he was going; he had no questions to ask an oracle. Oracles were for people to whom ambiguous visions could make a difference, but now the only things which could make a difference to High Lord Mhoram son of Variol were things which would give him courage.

In a stupor of dread, he climbed out into the wind which scythed across the open plateau. Above its chill ululations, he could hear battle crashing against the walls of the Keep, waves of assailants hurling themselves like breakers against a defiant and ultimately frangible cliff. But he put the sound behind him; it was only a symbol, a concentration, of the whole Land’s abominable doom. Without Thomas Covenant-! Mhoram could not complete the thought. He walked up through the barren hills away from Revelstone, up toward the river and northward along it, with an abyss in his heart where the survival of the Land should have been. This, he told himself, was what Kevin Landwaster must have felt when Lord Foul overwhelmed Kurash Plenethor, making all responses short of Desecration futile. He did not know how the pain of it could be endured.