The Power That Preserves

He could not bear to watch the aghast supplications which wrung the faces of his friends. He put his arm over Drinny’s neck and concluded as if he were speaking to the Ranyhyn, “This choice is mine. I will ride against Satansfist alone if I must. But this act must be made.”

At last, Amatin found herself to gasp, “Melenkurion! Melenkurion abatha! Mhoram, have you learned nothing from Trell Atiaran-mate- from the Bloodguard-from Kevin Landwaster himself? You beg yourself to become a Desecrator. In this way, we learn to destroy that which we love!”

High Lord Mhoram’s reply had the sting of authority. “Warmark, I will take no warrior with me who has not accepted this hazard freely. You must explain to the Warward that the light of Loric’s krill has failed.”

He ached to rush to his friends, ached to throw his arms around them, hug them, show them in some way his love and his terrible need for them. But he knew himself; he knew he would be utterly unable to leave them if they did not first show their independence to themselves and him by meeting alone his extreme demands. His own courage hung too much on the verge of faltering; he needed some demonstration from them to help him follow the strait line of faith. So he contained himself by hugging Drinny tightly for a moment, then turned on his heel and walked stiffly away to his private chambers.

He spent the next days alone, trying to rest-searching himself for some resource which would enable him to bear the impossibility and the uselessness of his decision. But a fever was on his soul. The foundation of serenity which had sustained him for so long seemed to have eroded. Whether he lay on his bed, or ate, or paced his chambers, or studied, he could feel a great emptiness in the heart of the Keep where the krill’s fire should have been. He had not realized how much that white blaze had taught him to rely on the Unbeliever. Its quenching left him face to face with futile death-death for himself, for Drinny, for any who dared follow him-death that could only be trusted to foreshorten Revelstone’s survival. So he spent large stretches of the time on his hands and knees on the floor, probing through the stone in an effort to sense how his commands were being met.

Without difficulty he read the preparations of the Warward. The few hundred horses which had been stabled in the Keep were being made ready. The duty rotations of the warriors were changed so that those who chose to follow the High Lord could rest and prepare. And as a result, the burden of resisting samadhi’s attacks fell on fewer shoulders. Soon the defence took on a febrile pitch which matched Mhoram’ s own fever. His commands had hastened the Warward’s ineluctable decline into frenzy and desperation. He ground his teeth on that pain and hunted elsewhere in the city for the Lords.

He found that Lord Amatin had retreated to the isolation of the Loresraat’s libraries, but Trevor, Loerya, and Hearthrall Tohrm were active. Together, Lord Trevor and Tohrm went down into one of the unfrequented caverns directly under the tower. There they combined their lore in a rite dangerously similar to Trell’s destruction of the Close, and sent a surge of heat up through the stone into the passages of the tower. They stoked the heat for a day, raised it against the enemy until the Cavewights and creatures began to abandon the tower.

And when the lowest levels were empty, Lord Loerya led several Eoman in an assault. Under cover of darkness, they leaped from the main Keep into the sand, crossed the courtyard, and entered the tower to fight their way upward. By the dawn of the third day, they were victorious. Makeshift crosswalks were thrown up over the courtyard, and hundreds of archers rushed across to help secure the tower.

Their success gave Mhoram a pride in them that eased his distress for a time. He doubted that the tower could be held for more than a day or two, but a day or two would be enough, if the rest of his commands were equally met.

Then, during the third day, Amatin returned to work. She had spent the time in an intense study of certain arcane portions of the Second Ward which High Lord Mhoram himself had never grasped, and there she had found the rites and invocations she sought. Armed with that knowledge, she went to the abutments directly above the courtyard, made eldritch signs and symbols on the stone, wove rare gestures, chanted songs in the lost language of the Old Lords-and below her the sandy remains of the dead slowly parted. They pulled back far enough to permit the opening of the gates, far enough to permit an army to ride out of Revelstone.

Her achievement drew Mhoram from his chambers to watch. When she was done, she collapsed in his arms, but he was so proud of her that his concern was dominated by relief. When the Healers assured him she would soon recover if she were allowed to rest, he left her and went to the stables to see Drinny.

He found a Ranyhyn that hardly resembled the ragged, worn horse he had ridden into Revelstone. Good food and treatment had rekindled the light in Drinny’s eyes, renewed his flesh, restored elasticity to his muscles. He pranced and nickered for Mhoram as if to show the High Lord he was ready.

Such things rejuvenated Mhoram. Without further hesitation, he told Warmark Quaan that he would ride out against the Raver the next morning.

But late that night, while Trevor, Loerya, and Quaan all struggled against a particularly fierce flurry of onslaughts, Lord Amatin came to Mhoram’s rooms. She did not speak, but her wan, bruised aspect caught at his heart. Her labours had done something to her; in straining herself so severely, she had lost her defences, left herself exposed to perils and perceptions for which she was neither willing nor apt. This vulnerability gave her a look of abjection, as if she had come to cast herself at Mhoram’s feet.

Without a word, she raised her hands to the High Lord. In them she held the krill of Loric.

He accepted it without dropping his gaze from her face. “Ah, sister Amatin,” he breathed gently, “you should rest. You have earned-“

But a spasm of misery around her eyes cut him off. He looked down, made himself look at the krill.

Deep in its gem, he saw faint glimmerings of emerald.

Without a word, Amatin turned and left him alone with the knowledge that Covenant’s ring had fallen into the power of the Despiser.

When he left his rooms the next morning, he looked like a man who had spent the night wrestling in vain against his own damnation. His step had lost its conviction; he moved as if his very bones were loose and bending. And the dangerous promise of his gaze had faded, leaving his eyes dull, stricken. He bore the krill within his robe and could feel Lord Foul’s sick emerald hold upon it growing. Soon, he knew, the cold of the green would begin to burn his flesh. But he was past taking any account of such risks. He dragged himself forward as if he were on his way to commit a perfidy which appalled him.

In the great entrance hall a short distance within Revelstone’s still-closed gates, he joined the warriors. They were ranked by Eoman, and he saw at a glance that they numbered two thousand: one Howard on horseback and four on foot-a third of the surviving Warward. He faltered at the sight; he had not expected to be responsible for so many deaths. But the warriors hailed him bravely, and he forced himself to respond as if he trusted himself to lead them. Then he moved in anguish to the forefront, where Drinny awaited him.

The Lords and Warmark Quaan were there with the Ranyhyn, but he passed by them because he could not meet their eyes, and tried to mount. His muscles failed him; he was half paralyzed by dread and could not leap high enough to gain Drinny’s back. Shaking on the verge of an outcry, he clung to the horse for support, and beseeched himself for the serenity which had been his greatest resource.

Yet he could not make the leap; Drinny’s back was too high for him. He ached to ask for help. But before he could force words through his locked throat, he felt Quaan behind him, felt Quaan’s hand on his shoulder. The old Warmark’s voice was gruff with urgency as he said, “High Lord, this risk will weaken Revelstone. A third of the Warward-two thousand lives wasted. High Lord-why? Have you become like Kevin Landwaster? Do you wish to destroy that which you love?”

“No!” Mhoram whispered because the tightness of his throat blocked any other sound. With his hands, he begged Drinny for strength. “I do not-I do not forget-I am the High Lord. The path of faith is clear. I must follow it- because it is not despair.”

“You will teach us despair-if you fail.”

Mhoram heard the pain in Quaan’s voice, and he compelled himself to answer. He could not refuse Quaan’s need; he was too weak, but he could not refuse. “No. Lord Foul teaches despair. It is an easier lesson than courage.” Slowly, he turned around, met first Quaan’s gaze, then the eyes of the Lords. “An easier lesson,” he repeated. “Therefore the counsels of despair and hate can never triumph over Despite.”

But his reply only increased Quaan’s pain. While knuckles of distress clenched Quaan’s open face, he moaned