Her song hurt Covenant’s ears, exacerbating his raw helplessness. He could not bear her intent, and could not oppose it; her interdict kept him on his knees like fetters of humiliation. Though he was only a dozen yards from her, he could not reach her, could not interfere with her purpose.
His thoughts raced madly, scrambled for alternatives. He could not abide the destruction of the Colossus. He had to find another answer.
“Foamfollower!” he croaked in desperation. “I don’t know what’s happening to you-I don’t know what’s being done to you. But you’ve got to fight it! You’re a Giant! You’ve got to stop her! Try to stop her! Foamfollower! Bannor!”
The Ravers met his plea with sardonic jeers, and Triock rasped without taking his eyes off Elena, “You are a fool, Thomas Covenant. They cannot help you. They are too strong to be mastered-as I have been mastered-and too weak to be masters. Therefore she has imprisoned them by the power of the Staff. The Staff crushes all resistance. Thus it is proven that Law does not oppose Despite. We are all mastered beyond redemption.”
“Not you!” Covenant responded urgently. He fought the pressure until he feared his lungs would break, but he could not free himself. Without his ring, he felt as crippled as if his arms had been amputated. Without it, he weighed less than nothing in the scales of the Land’s fate. “Not you!” he gasped again. “I can hear you, Triock! You! She isn’t afraid of you-she isn’t holding you. Triock! Stop her!”
Again the Ravers laughed. But this time Covenant heard the strain in their voices. Heaving against his captivity, he managed to wrench his head around far enough to look at Whane and Lal.
They still stood a safe distance from the Colossus. Neither made any move to help Covenant or oppose Elena. Both went on chuckling as if they could not help themselves. Yet their exertion was unmistakable. They were white-lipped and rigid; beads of effort ran down their faces. With all the long pride of their people, the Ramen were struggling to break free.
And behind them, Foamfollower and Bannor strove for freedom also. Somehow, both of them had found the strength to move slightly. Foamfollower’s head was bowed, and he clenched his face with one hand as if he were trying to alter the shape of his skull. Banner’s fingers clawed at his sides; his face grew taut, baring his teeth. Urgently, desperately, they fought Elena’s power.
Their ordeal felt terrible to Covenant-terrible and hopeless. Like the Ramen, they were beyond the limits of what they could do. Pressure mounted in them, radiated from them. It was so acute that Covenant feared their hearts would rupture. And they had no chance of success. The power of the Staff increased to crush every extravagance of their self-expenditure.
Their futility hurt Covenant more than his own. He was accustomed to impotence, inured to it, but Bannor and Foamfollower were not. The stark vision of their defeat almost made him cry out in anguish. He wanted to shout to them, beg them to stop before they drove themselves soul-mad.
But the next instant a surge of new hope shot through him as he suddenly understood what they were doing. They knew they could not escape, were not trying to escape. They fought toward another goal. Elena was paying no attention to them; she concentrated on preparing for the destruction of the Colossus. So she was not actively exerting herself to imprison them. She had simply left her compulsion in the air and turned her back.
Foamfollower and Bannor were drawing on this compulsion, using it-using it up. As the Giant and the Bloodguard strained for freedom, strove with all their personal might, Triock jerked his head from side to side, quivered in a fever of passion, snapped his jaws as if he were trying to tear hunks of domination out of the air-and began to move toward Elena.
The Ravers made no attempt to stop him. They could not; the struggles of the Ramen gave them no leeway in which to act.
Triock strained as he moved as if his bones were being torn asunder, and he quavered imploringly again and again, “Elena? Elena?” But he moved; he advanced step by step toward her.
Covenant watched him in an agony of suspense.
Before he came within arm’s reach of her, she said severely, “Stop.”
Swaying in a gale of conflicting demands, Triock halted.
“If you resist me one more step,” she grated, “I will tear your heart from your pathetic old body and feed it to Herem and Jehannum while you observe them and beg me to let you die.”
Triock was weeping now, shaking with importunate sobs. “Elena? Elena?”
Without even glancing at him, she resumed her song.
But the next instant, something snatched at her attention, spun her away from the Colossus. Her face pointed lividly toward the west. Surprise and anger contorted her features. For a moment, she stared in speechless indignation at the intrusion.
Then she brandished the Staff of Law. “The Lords strike back!” she howled furiously. “
Covenant gaped at the information, at her knowledge of the siege of Revelstone. But he had no time to assimilate it.
“Foul’s blood!” she raged. “Blast them, Raver!” Immense forces gathered in the Staff, mounting to be hurled across the distance to
For that instant, she neglected her compulsion of the people around her.
The blindness lost its hold on Bannor and Foamfollower. They tottered, lurched, started into motion. The Ravers tried to react, but could not move quickly enough against the resistance of the Ramen.
Covenant felt the pressure on his back ease. At once, he rolled out from under it. Springing to his feet, he launched himself toward Elena.
But Triock was the only one close enough to her to take advantage of her lapse. With a wild cry, he chopped both fists down at her left hand.
His hands passed through her spectral flesh and struck the ring. The unexpectedness of the blow tore the solid band from her surprised fingers. It dropped free.
He dove after it, got one hand on it, flicked it away toward Covenant as his body slapped the hard ground.
Elena’ s reaction came instantly. Before Triock could roll, try to evade her, she stabbed the Staff down at him, hit him in the centre of his back. Power flared through him, shattering his spine.
Almost in the same motion, she swung the Staff up again, caught it in a combat grip as she whirled to face Covenant.
His start toward her almost made him miss the ring. It went past him on one side, but he skidded and pounced on it, scooped it up before she could stop him. With his wedding band clenched in his fist, he braced himself to meet her attack.
She regarded him momentarily, then chose not to exert herself against him. With one wave of the Staff, she re-imprisoned Foamfollower and Bannor, quenched the rebellion of the Ramen. Then she dropped her guard as if she no longer needed it. Her voice shook with anger, but she was steady as she said, “It will not avail him. He knows not how to awaken its might. Herem, Jehannum-I leave him to you.”
In horrid unison, the two Ravers snarled their satisfaction, their hunger for him. Together, they moved slowly toward him.
He was caught between them and Elena.
So that he would not lose his ring again, he pushed it onto his wedding finger. He had lost weight; his fingers were gaunt, and the ring hung on him insecurely, as if it might fall off at any moment. Yet his need for it had never been greater. He clenched his fist around it and retreated before the advance of the Ravers.
In the back of his mind, he was sure that Triock was not dead. Triock was his summoner; he would disappear from the Land as soon as the Stonedownor died. But Triock surely had only moments of life left. Without knowing how to do it, Covenant wanted to make those moments count.
He backed away from the Ravers, toward Elena. She stood at rest near the Colossus, observing him. Glee and anger were balanced in her face. The Ravers came at him step by slow step, with their arms extended hungrily, sarcastically, inviting him to abandon resistance and rush into the oblivion of their grasp.
They advanced; he retreated; she stood where she was, defying him to touch her. His ring hung lifeless on his finger as if it were a thing of metal and futility, nothing more-a talisman devoid of meaning in his hands. A rising tide of protest filled him with ineffectual curses.
Hellfire. Hellfire. Hell and blood!
