"There have been more," he explained, returning to his seat, "but in the last generation nearly all the best at the Loresraat have chosen the Rites of Unfettering. I am the first to pass the tests in fifteen years. Alas, it is in my heart that we will want other power now." He clenched his staff until his knuckles whitened, and for a moment his eyes did not conceal his sense of need.
Gruffly, Covenant said, "Then tell your friends to brace themselves. You're not going to like what I've got to say."
But Mhoram relaxed slowly, as if he had not heard Covenant's warning. One finger at a time, he released his grip until the staff lay untouched in his lap. Then he smiled softly. "Thomas Covenant, I am not altogether reasonless when I assume that you are not an enemy. You have a lillianrill staff and a rhadhamaerl knife-yes, and the staff has seen struggle against a strong foe. And I have already spoken with Saltheart Foamfollower. You have been trusted by others. I do not think you would have won your way here without trust."
"Hellfire!" retorted Covenant. "You've got it backward." He threw his words like stones at a false image of himself. "They coerced me into coming. It wasn't my idea. I haven't had a choice since this thing started." With his fingers he touched his chest to remind himself of the one choice he did have.
"Unwilling," Mhoram replied gently. "So there is good reason for calling you `Unbeliever.' Well, let it pass. We will hear your tale at the Council tomorrow.
"Now. I fear I have given your questions little opportunity. But the time for Vespers has come. Will you accompany me? If you wish we will speak along the way."
Covenant nodded at once. In spite of his weariness, he was eager for a chance to be active, keep his thoughts busy. The discomfort of being interrogated eras only a little less than the distress of the questions he wanted to ask about white gold. To escape his complicated vulnerabilities, he stood up and said, "Lead the way."
The Lord bowed in acknowledgment, and at once preceded Covenant into the corridor outside his room. There they found Bannor. He stood against the wall near the door with his arms folded stolidly across his chest, but he moved to join them as Mhoram and Covenant entered the passageway. On an impulse, Covenant intercepted him. He met Bannor's gaze, touched the Bloodguard's chest with one rigid finger, and said, "I don't trust you either." Then he turned in angry satisfaction back to the Lord.
Mhoram paused while Bannor went into Covenant's room to pick up one of the torches. Then the Bloodguard took a position a step behind Covenant's left shoulder, and Lord Mhoram led them down the corridor. Soon Covenant was lost again; the complexities of the tower confused him as quickly as a maze. But in a short time they reached a hall which seemed to end in a dead wall of stone. Mhoram touched the stone with an end of his staff, and it swung inward, opening over the courtyard between the tower and the main Keep. From this doorway, a crosswalk stretched over to a buttressed coign.
Covenant took one look at the yawning gulf of the courtyard, and backed away. "No," he muttered, "forget it. I'll just stay here if you don't mind." Blood rushed like shame into his face, and a rivulet of sweat ran coldly down his back. "I'm no good at heights."
The Lord regarded him curiously for a moment, but did not challenge his reaction. "Very well," he said simply. "We will go another way."
Sweating half in relief, Covenant followed as Mhoram retraced part of their way, then led a complex descent to one of the doors at the base of the tower. There they crossed the courtyard.
Then for the first time Covenant was in the main body of Revelstone.
Around him, the Keep was brightly lit with torches and graveling. Its walls were high and broad enough for Giants, and their spaciousness contrasted strongly with the convolution of the tower. In the presence of so much wrought, grand and magisterial granite, such a weight of mountain rock spanning such open, illuminated halls, he felt acutely his own meagerness, his mere frail mortality. Once again, he sensed that the makers of Revelstone had surpassed him.
But Mhoram and Bannor did not appear meager to him. The Lord strode forward as if these halls were his natural element, as if his humble flesh flourished in the service of this old grandeur. And Bannor's personal solidity seemed to increase, as if he bore within him something that almost equaled Revelstone's permanence. Between them, Covenant felt half disincarnate, void of some essential actuality.
A snarl jumped across his teeth, and his shoulders hunched as he strangled such thoughts. With a grim effort, he forced himself to concentrate on the superficial details around him.
They turned down a hallway which went straight but for gradual undulations, as if it were carved to suit the grain of the rock-into the heart of the mountain. From it, connecting corridors branched out at various intervals, some cutting directly across between cliff and cliff, and some only joining the central hall with the outer passages. Through these corridors, a steadily growing number of men and women entered the central hall, all, Covenant guessed, going toward Vespers. Some wore the breastplates and headbands of warriors; others, Woodhelvennin and Stonedownor garb with which Covenant was familiar. Several struck him as being related in some way to the lillianrill or rhadhamaerl; but many more seemed to belong to the more prosaic occupations of running a city-cooking, cleaning, building, repairing, harvesting. Scattered through the crowd were a few Bloodguard. Many of the people nodded and beamed respectfully at Lord Mhoram, and he returned salutations in all directions, often hailing his greeters by game. But behind him, Bannor carried the torch and walked as inflexibly as if he were alone in the Keep.
As the throng thickened, Mhoram moved toward the wall on one side, then stopped at a door. Opening he turned to Bannor and said, "I must join the High Lord. Take Thomas Covenant to a place among the people in the sacred enclosure." To Covenant, he added, "Bannor will bring you to the Close at the proper time tomorrow." With a salute, he left Covenant with the Bloodguard.
Now Bannor led Covenant ahead through Revelstone. After some distance, the hall ended, split at right angles to arc left and right around a wide wall, and into this girdling corridor the people poured from all directions. Doors large enough to admit Giants marked the curved wall at regular intervals; through them the people passed briskly, but without confusion or jostling.
On either side of each door stood a Gravelingas and a Hirebrand; and as Covenant neared one of the doors, he heard the door wardens intoning, "If there is ill in your heart, leave it here. There is no room for it within." Occasionally one of the people reached out and touched a warder as if handing over a burden.
When he reached the door, Bannor gave his torch to the Hirebrand. The Hirebrand quenched it by humming a snatch of song and closing his hand over the flame. Then he returned the rod to Bannor, and the Bloodguard entered the enclosure with Covenant behind him.
Covenant found himself on a balcony circling the inside of an enormous cavity. It held no lights, but illumination streamed into it from all the open doors, and there were six more balconies above the one on which Covenant stood, all accessed by many open doors. He could see clearly. The balconies stood in vertical tiers, and below them, more than a hundred feet down, was the fiat bottom of the cavity. A dais occupied one side, but the rest of the bottom was full of people. The balconies also were full, but relatively uncrowded; everyone had a full view of the dais below.
Sudden dizziness beat out of the air at Covenant's head. He clutched at the chest-high railing, braced his laboring heart against it. Revelstone seemed full of vertigoes; everywhere he went, he had to contend with cliffs, gulfs, abysms. But the rail was reassuring
granite. Hugging it, he fought down his fear, looked up to take his eyes away from the enclosure bottom.
He was dimly surprised to find that the cavity was not open to the sky; it ended in a vaulted dome several hundred feet above the highest balcony. The details of the ceiling were obscure, but he thought he could make out figures carved in the stone, giant forms vaguely dancing.
Then the light began to fail. One by one, the do
ors were being shut; as they closed, darkness filled the cavity like recreated night. Soon the enclosure was sealed free of light, and into the void the soft moving noises and breathing of the people spread like a restless spirit. The blackness seemed to isolate Covenant. He felt as anchorless as if he had been cast adrift in deep space, and the massive stone of the Keep impended over him as if its sheer brute tonnage bore personally on the back of his neck. Involuntarily, he leaned toward Bannor, touched the solid Bloodguard with his shoulder.
Then a flame flared up on the dais-two flames, a lillianrill torch and a pot of graveling. Their lights were tiny in the huge cavity, but they revealed Birinair and Tohrm standing on either side of the dais, holding their respective fires. Behind each Hearthrall were two blue-robed figures-Lord Mhoram with an ancient woman on his arm behind Birinair, and a woman and an old man behind Tohrm. And between these two groups stood another man robed in blue. His erect carriage denied the age of his white hair and beard. Intuitively, Covenant guessed, That's him-High Lord Prothall.
The man raised his staff and struck its metal three times on the stone dais. He held his head high as he spoke, but his voice remembered that he was old. In spite of bold carriage and upright spirit, there was a rheumy ache of age in his tone as he said, "This is the Vespers of Lord's Keep-ancient Revelstone, Giant-wrought bourne of all that we believe. Be welcome, strong heart and weak, light and dark, blood and bone and thew and mind and soul, for good and all. Set Peace about you and within you. This time is consecrate to the services of the Earth."
His companions responded, "Let there be healing and hope, heart and home, for the Land, and for all people in the services of the Earth-for you before us, you direct participants in Earthpower and Lore, lillianrill and rhadhamaerl, learners, Lorewardens, and warriors-and for you above us, you people and daily carers of the hearth and harvest of life and for you among us, you Giants, Bloodguard, strangers-and for you absent Ranyhyn and Ramen and Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin, all brothers and sisters. of the common troth. We are the Lords of the Land. Be welcome and true."
Then the Lords sang into the darkness of the sacred enclosure. The Hearthrall fires were small in the huge, high, thronged sanctuary-small, and yet for all their smallness distinct, cynosural, like uncorrupt courage. And in that light the Lords sang their hymn.
Seven Wards of ancient Lore
For Land's protection, wall and door:
And one High Lord to wield the Law
To- keep all uncorrupt Earth's Power's core.
Seven Words for ill's despite
Banes for evil's dooming wight:
And one pure Lord to hold the Staff
To bar the Land from Foul's betraying sight.
Seven hells for failed faith,
For Land's betrayers, man and wraith:
And one brave Lord to deal the doom
To keep the blacking blight from Beauty's bloom.
As the echo of their voices faded, High Lord Prothall spoke again. "We are the new preservers of the Land-votaries and handservants of the Earthpower; sworn and dedicated to the retrieval of Kevin's Lore, and to the healing of the Earth from all that is barren or unnatural, ravaged, foundationless, or perverse. And sworn and dedicated as well, in equal balance with all other consecrations and promises sworn despite any urging of the importunate self-to the Oath of Peace. For serenity is the only promise we can give that we will not desecrate the Land again."
The people standing before the dais replied in unison, "We will not redesecrate the Land, though the effort of self mastery wither us on the vine of our lives. Nor will we rest until the shadow of our former folly is lifted from the Land's heart, and the darkness is whelmed in growth and life."
And Prothall returned, "But there is no withering in the service of the Land. Service enables service, just as servility perpetuates debasement. We may go from knowledge to knowledge, and to still braver knowledge, if courage holds, and commitment holds, and wisdom does not fall under the shadow. We are the new preservers of the Land-votaries and handservants to the Earthpower.
For we will not rest-
not turn aside,
lose faith,
or fail-
until the Gray flows Blue,
and Rill and Maerl are as new and clean
as ancient Llurallin."
To this the entire assembly responded by singing the same words, line by line, after the High Lord; and the massed communal voice reverberated in the sacred enclosure as if his rheumy tone had tapped some pent, subterranean passion. While the mighty sound lasted, Prothall bowed his head in humility.
But when it was over, he threw back his head and flung his arms wide as if baring his breast to a denunciation. "Ah, my friends!" he cried. "Handservants, votaries of the Land-why have we so failed to comprehend Kevin's Lore? Which of us has in any way advanced the knowledge of our predecessors? We hold the First Ward in our hands-we read the script, and is much we understand the words-and
yet we do not penetrate the secrets. Some failure in us, some false inflection, some mistaken action, some base alloy in our intention, prevents. I do not doubt that our purpose is pure-it is High Lord Kevin's purpose-and before him Loric's and Damelon's and Heartthew's-but wiser, for we will never lift our hands against the Land in mad despair. But what, then? Where are we wrong, that we cannot grasp what is given to us?"
For a moment after his voice faltered and fell, the sanctuary was silent, and the void throbbed like weeping, as if in his words the people recognized themselves, recognized the failure he described as their own. But then a new voice arose. Saltheart Foamfollower said boldly, "My Lord, we have not reached our end. True, the work of our lifetime has been to comprehend and consolidate the gains of our forebearers. But our labor will open the doors of the future. Our children and their children will gain because we have not lost heart, for faith and courage are the greatest gift that we can give to our descendants. And the Land holds mysteries of which we know nothing mysteries of hope as well as of peril. Be of good heart, Rockbrothers. Your faith is precious above all things:"
But you don't have time! Covenant groaned. Faith! Children! Foul is going to destroy you. Within him, his conception of the Lords whirled, altered. They were not superior beings, fate-shapers; they were mortals like himself, familiar with impotence. Foul would reave them
For an instant, he released the railing as if he meant to cry out his message of doom to the gathered people. But at once vertigo broke through his resistance, pounced at him out of the void. Reeling, he stumbled against the rail, then fell back to clutch at Bannor's shoulder.
that the uttermost limit of their span of days upon the Land
He would have to read them their death warrant.
"Get me out of here," he breathed hoarsely. "I can't stand it."
Bannor held him, guided him. Abruptly, a door opened into the brilliance of the outer corridor. Covenant half fell through the doorway. Without a word,. Bannor refit his torch at one of the flaming brands set into the wall. Then he took Covenant's arm to support him.
Covenant threw off his hand. "Don't touch me," he panted inchoately. "Can't you see I'm sick?"
No flicker of expression shaded Bannor's fiat countenance. Dispassionately, he turned and led Covenant away from the sacred enclosure.
Covenant followed, bent forward and holding his stomach as if he were nauseated. -that the uttermost limit- How could he help them? He could not even help himself. In confusion and heart distress, he shambled back to his room in the tower, stood dumbly in the chamber while Bannor replaced his torch and left, closing the door like a judgment behind him. Then he gripped his temples as if his mind were being torn in two.
None of this is happening, he moaned. How are they doing this to me?
Reeling inwardly, he turned to look at the arras as if it might contain some answer. But it only aggravated his distress, incensed him like a sudden affront. Bloody hell! Berek, he groaned. Do you think it's that easy? Do you think tha
t ordinary human despair is enough, that if you just feel bad enough something cosmic or at least miraculous is bound to come along and rescue you? Damn you! he's going to destroy them! You're just another leper outcast unclean, and you don't even know it!
His fingers curled like feral claws, and he sprang forward, ripping at the arms as if he were trying to rend a black lie off the stone of the world. The heavy fabric refused to tear in his half-unfingered grasp, but he got it down from the wall. Throwing open the balcony, he wrestled the arras out into the crimson tainted night and heaved it over the railing. It fell like a dead leaf of winter.
I am not Berek!
Panting at his effort, he returned to the room, slammed the partition shut against the bloody light.
He threw off his robe, put on his own underwear, then extinguished the fires and climbed into bed. But the soft, clean touch of the sheets on his skin gave him no consolation.
FOURTEEN: The Council of Lords
HE awoke in a dull haze which felt like the presage of some thunderhead, some black boil and white fire blaring. Mechanically he went through the motions of readying himself for the Council-washed, inspected himself, dressed in his own clothes, shaved again. When Bannor brought him a tray of food, he ate as if the provender were made of dust and gravel. Then he slipped Atiaran's knife into his belt, gripped the staff of Baradakas in his left hand, and sat down facing the door to await the summons.
Finally, Bannor returned to tell him that the time had come. For a few moments, Covenant sat still, holding the Bloodguard in his half-unseeing gaze, and wondering where he could get the courage to go on with this dream. He felt that his face was twisted, but he could not be sure.
-that the uttermost limit