“Memla,” he said thickly. “Tell her we need Coursers.”
“Yes, ur-Lord.” Brinn did not move. But two or three Haruchai left the fire and loped easily up toward the watchtower.
Someone placed a bowl of metheglin in Covenant’s hands. He drank it, tried to squeeze a semblance of clarity into his vision, and found himself staring at Vain.
The Demondim-spawn stood with his arms slightly bent, as if he were ready to commit acts which could not be foreseen. His black eyes stared at nothing; the ghoul grin was gone from his black lips. But he still wore the heels of the Staff of Law, one on his right wrist, the other on his left ankle. The burns he had received two nights ago were almost healed.
As a man caught in the coercion— Was that it? Was the Clave responsible for Vain? Ur-viles serving the Clave? How far did the na-Mhoram’s mendacity extend? Vain’s blackness echoed the night. How had he roused Linden? And why? Covenant wanted to rage at the Demondim-spawn. But he himself had killed—without control or even reluctance. He lacked the rectitude to unravel Vain’s intent. There was too much blood on his head.
And not enough in his veins. He was failing. The illumination cast by the bonfire seemed to shrink around him. He had so little time left—
Listen, he started to say. This is what we’re going to do. But his voice made no sound.
His hand groped for Brinn’s shoulder. Help me. I’ve got to hold on. A little longer.
“Covenant.”
Linden’s voice tugged him back into focus. She stood before him. Somehow she had pulled herself out of her inner rout. Her eyes searched him. “I thought I saw—” She regarded the wild tangle of his beard as if it had prevented her from identifying him earlier. Then her gaze found the thick red scars on his wrists. A sharp gasp winced through her teeth.
At once, she grabbed his forearms, drew his wrists into the light. “I was right. You’ve lost blood. A lot of it.” Her physician’s training rose up in her. She studied him, gauging his condition with her eyes and hands. “You need a transfusion.”
The next moment, she perceived the newness of the scars. Her gaze jumped to his face. “What did they do to you?”
At first, he could not respond. The soothtell was too exigent; he felt unable to bear the answer she needed.
But she misunderstood his silence. Abomination stretched her visage. “Did you—?”
Her apprehension broke him out of his paralysis. “No. Not that. They did it to me. I’ll be all right.”
A sag of relief softened her expression. But her eyes did not leave his face. She struggled for words as if the conflict of her emotions blocked her throat. Finally she said hoarsely, “I heard you shout. We almost got free.” Her stare drifted out of focus, turned inward. “For a while, I would have given my soul to hear you shout again.” But memories made her flee outward again. “Tell me—” she began, fighting for severity as if it were essential to her. “Tell me what happened to you.”
He shook his head. “I’m all right.” What else could he say? “Gibbon wanted blood. I didn’t have a chance to refuse.” He knew that he should explain, that all his companions needed to know what he had learned in the soothtell. But he had no strength.
As if to spare Covenant the necessity of speech, Brinn said flatly, “The ur-Lord’s life was forfeit in the soothtell. Yet with wild magic he healed himself.”
At that, Linden’s orbs darkened. Her lips echoed soundlessly, Healed? Her gaze dropped to the old scar behind the cut in his shirt. The recovery of determination which had drawn her out of herself seemed to crumple. Losses which he could not begin to understand overflowed from her eyes. She turned away from him, turned her face toward the night. “Then you don’t need me.”
Hollian reached out to her. Like a child, Linden put her arms around Hollian’s neck and buried her face in the eh-Brand’s shoulder.
Covenant did not react. The pressure of his rage and grief was all that stood between him and darkness. He could not move without falling. What did that bastard do to you?
“Ur-Lord,” Brinn said, “we must not delay. The na-Mhoram was not slain. Surely the Clave will soon strike against us.”
“I know.” Covenant’s heart was crying uselessly, Linden! and hot streaks of self-reproach ran from his eyes; but his voice was adamantine. “We’ll go. As soon as Memla gets here.” He did not doubt that Memla would come. She had no choice; she had already betrayed the Clave for him. Too many people had already done too much for him.
“That is well,” Brinn replied. “Where will we go?”
Covenant did not falter. He was sure of what he had to do. His Dead had prepared him for this. “To find the One Tree. I’m going to make a new Staff of Law.”
His auditors fell abruptly silent. Incomprehension clouded Hollian’s face. Sunder frowned as if he wanted to speak but could not find the right words. The knot of Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin held themselves still. Vain betrayed no flicker of interest. But the eyes of the Haruchai shone.
“The old tellers,” Brinn said slowly, “relate that the Lords, even at the time of Kevin, had a legend of the One Tree, from which the Staff of Law was made. Ur-Lord Covenant, you conceive a bold undertaking. You will be accompanied. But how will you seek the One Tree? We have no knowledge of it.”
No knowledge, Covenant breathed wanly. He had guessed as much. South of the Land lay the lifeless Gray Desert. In the north, the long winter of the Northron Climbs was said to be impassable. And to the west, where the Haruchai lived, there was no knowledge of the One Tree. He accepted that. If Berek had gone west to find the One Tree, he would surely have encountered Brinn’s people. With an effort, Covenant answered, “Neither do I. But we’ll go east. To the Sea.” Where the Giants had come from. “To get away from the Clave. After that—I don’t know.”
Brinn nodded. “It is good. This the Haruchai will do. Cail, Stell, Ceer, Harn, Hergrom, and myself will share your quest, to ward you and your companions. Two score will return to our people, to give them the knowledge we have gained.” His voice sharpened slightly. “And to consider our reply to the depredations of this Clave. Those who remain will see these Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin to their homes—if such aid is desired.”
The faces of the nine freed people of the Land expressed immediately their eagerness to accept Brinn’s offer.
“The old tellers speak much of the Giants—of their fidelity and laughter, and of their dying,” Brinn concluded. “Gladly will we look upon their home and upon the Sea which they loved.”
Now, Covenant said to himself. If ever he intended to refuse the Haruchai, escape his being dependent on and responsible for them again after four thousand years, now was the time. But he could not. He was no longer able to stand without Brinn’s support. Isn’t it bad enough, he groaned, that I’m the one who destroyed the Staff? Opened the door for the Sunbane? Do I have to carry this, too? But he needed the Haruchai and could not refuse.
For a moment, the night reeled; but then he felt hands touch his chest, and saw Sunder standing before him. The Graveler held his chin up, exposing his damaged neck as if with that injury he had earned answers. His eyes reflected the firelight like the echoing of his torn mind.
“Covenant,” he said in a clenched tone, using that name instead of the title ur-Lord, as if he sought to cut through awe and power and command to the man behind them. “I have journeyed far in your name, and will journey farther. But there is fear in me. The eh-Brand foretells a sun of pestilence—after but two days of rain. In freeing us, you have damaged the Clave. And now the Sunbane quickens. Perhaps you have done such harm that the Clave can no longer moderate the Sunbane. Perhaps you have wrought a great peril for the Land.”
Covenant heard the personal urgency of Sunder’s question; but for a time he lacked the fortitude to reply. Sunder’s doubt pained him, weakened him. His veins were empty of life, and his muscles could no longer support him. Even the warmth of the krill under his belt had faded into his general inurement. But Sunder was his
friend. The Graveler had already sacrificed too much for him. Fumbling among his frailties, he gave the first answer he found.
“The na-Mhoram is a Raver. Like Marid.”
But that did not satisfy Sunder. “So Linden Avery has said. Yet the Clave moderated the Sunbane for the sake of the Land, and now that moderation has been weakened.”
“No.” Somewhere within him. Covenant discovered a moment of strength. “The Clave doesn’t moderate the Sunbane. They’ve been using it to hurt the Land. Feeding it with blood. They’ve been serving Lord Foul for centuries.”
Sunder stared; incredulity seemed to hurt his face. Covenant’s asseveration violated everything he had ever believed. “Covenant.” Dismay scarred his voice. His hands made imploring gestures. “How can it be true? It is too much. How can I know that it is true?”
“Because I say it’s true.” The moment passed, leaving Covenant as weary as death. “I paid for that soothtell with my blood. And I was here. Four thousand years ago. When the Land was healthy. What the Clave taught you is something they made up to justify all that bloodshed.” A distant part of him saw what he was doing, and protested. He was identifying himself with the truth, making himself responsible for it. Surely no man could keep such a promise. Hile Troy had tried—and had lost his soul to the Forestal of Garroting Deep as a consequence.
“Then—” Sunder wrestled for comprehension. His features showed horror at the implications of what Covenant said—horror turning to rage, “Then why do you not fight? Destroy the Clave—end this ill? If they are such an abomination?”
Covenant drooped against Brinn. “I’m too weak.” He hardly heard himself. “And I’ve already killed—” A spasm of grief twisted his face. Twenty-one people! “I swore I would never kill again.” But for Sunder’s sake, he made one more effort to articulate what he believed. “I don’t want to fight them until I stop hating them.”
Slowly the Graveler nodded. The bonfire became a roaring in Covenant’s ears. For an instant of giddiness, he thought that Sunder was Nassic. Nassic with young, sane eyes. The Graveler, too, was capable of things which humbled Covenant.
There was movement around him. People were readying themselves for departure. They saluted him; but his numbness prevented him from responding. Escorted by nearly a score of Haruchai, they left the foothills. He did not watch them go. He hung on the verges of unconsciousness and fought to remain alive.
For a time, he drifted along the current of the bonfire. But then he felt himself turned in Brinn’s arms, gently shaken erect. He pried his eyes wide, scraped his eyelids across the sabulous exhaustion in his gaze, and saw Memla.
She stood grimly before him. Her chasuble was gone, and her robe had been singed in places. Her age-stained hair straggled about her shoulders. Fire blisters marred her right cheek; her blunt features were battered. But her eyes were angry, and she faced Covenant with her rukh held ready.
At her back champed five of the Clave’s huge Coursers.
Brinn nodded to her. “Memla na-Mhoram-in,” he said flatly. “The ur-Lord has awaited you.”
She gave Brinn a gesture of recognition without taking her eyes from Covenant. Her gruff voice both revealed and controlled her wrath. “I cannot live with lies. I will accompany you.”
Covenant had no words for her. Mutely he touched his right hand to his heart, then raised the palm toward her.
“I have brought Coursers,” she said. “They were not well defended—but well enough to hamper me. Only five could I wrest from so many of the na-Mhoram-cro.” The beasts were laden with supplies. “They are Din, Clang, Clangor, Annoy, and Clash.”
Covenant nodded. His head went on bobbing feebly, as if the muscles of his neck had fallen into caducity.
She gripped his gaze. “But one matter must be open between us. With my rukh, I can wield the Banefire to aid our journey. This the Clave cannot prevent. But I in turn cannot prevent them from knowing where I am and what I do, through my rukh. Half-hand.” Her tone took on an inflection of appeal. “I do not wish to set aside the sole power I possess.”
Her honesty and courage demanded an answer. With an effort that defocused his eyes and made his head spin, he said, “Keep it. I’ll take the chance.”
His reply softened her features momentarily. “When first we met,” she said, “your misdoubt was just, though I knew it not. Yet trust is preferable.” Then, abruptly, she stiffened again. “But we must depart. Gibbon has gathered the Clave at the Banefire. While we delay, they raise the Grim against us.”
The Grim! Covenant could not block the surge of his dismay. It carried him over the edge, and he plunged like dead stone into darkness.
As he fell, he heard a cold wail from Revelstone—a cry like the keening of the great Keep, promising loss and blood. Or perhaps the wail was within himself.
TWENTY-ONE: Sending
Sometime during the night, he wandered close to consciousness. He was being rocked on the back of a Courser. Arms reached around him from behind and knotted together over his heart. They supported him like bands of stone. Haruchai arms.
Someone said tensely, “Are you not a healer? You must succor him.”
“No.” Linden’s reply sounded small and wan, and complete. It made him moan deep in his throat.
Glints of rukh-fire hurt his eyes. When he shut out the sight, he faded away once more.
The next time he looked up, he saw the gray of dawn in fragments through the monstrous jungle. The lightening of the sky lay directly ahead of him. He was mounted on Din, with Memla before him and Brinn behind. Another Courser, carrying Ceer and Hergrom, led the way along the line Memla created with her rukh. The rest of the company followed Din.
As Covenant fumbled toward wakefulness, Memla’s path ran into an area of relatively clear ground under the shade of a towering stand of rhododendron. There she halted. Over her shoulder, she called to the company, “Remain mounted. The Coursers will spare us from the Sunbane.”
Behind him, Covenant heard Sunder mutter, “Then it is true—”
But Hergrom dropped to the ground, began to accept supplies handed down by Ceer; and Brinn said, “The Haruchai do not share this need to be warded.”
Immune? Covenant wondered dimly. Yes. How else had so many of them been able to reach Revelstone unwarped?
Then the sun began to rise, sending spangles of crimson and misery through the vegetation. Once again, the eh-Brand had foretold the Sunbane accurately.
When the first touch of the sun was past, Memla ordered the Coursers to their knees, controlling them all with her command. The company began to dismount.
Covenant shrugged off Brinn’s help and tried to stand alone. He found that he could. He felt as pale and weak as an invalid; but his muscles were at least able to hold his weight.
Unsteadily he turned to look back westward through the retreating night for some sign of the na-Mhoram’s Grim.
The horizon seemed clear.
Near him, Sunder and Stell had descended from one Courser, Hollian and Harn from another. Cail helped Linden down from the fifth beast. Covenant faced her with his frailty and concern; but she kept her gaze to herself, locked herself in her loneliness as if the very nerves of her eyes, the essential marrow of her bones, had been humiliated past bearing.
He left her alone. He did not know what to do, and felt too tenuous to do it.
While the Haruchai prepared food for the company—dried meat, bread, fruit, and metheglin—Memla produced from one of her sacks a large leather pouch of distilled voure, the pungent sap Covenant’s friends had once used to ward off insects under the sun of pestilence. Carefully she dabbed the concentrate on each of her companions, excluding only Vain. Covenant nodded at her omission. Perhaps rukh-fire could harm the Demondim-spawn. The Sunbane could not.
Covenant ate slowly and thoroughly, feeding his body’s poverty. But all the time, a weight of apprehension impended toward him from the west. He had seen During Stonedown, had seen what the Grim could do. With
an effort, he found his voice to ask Memla how long the raising of a Grim took.
She was clearly nervous. “That is uncertain,” she muttered. “The size of the Grim, and its range, must be considered.” Her gaze flicked to his face, leaving an almost palpable mark of anxiety across his cheek. “I read them. Here.” Her hands tightened on her rukh. “It will be very great.”
Very great, Covenant murmured. And he was so weak. He pressed his hands to the krill, and tried to remain calm.
A short time later, the company remounted. Memla drew on the Banefire to open a way for the huge Coursers. Again Hergrom and Ceer—on Annoy, Memla said: the names of the beasts seemed important to her, as if she loved them in her blunt fashion—went first, followed by Covenant, Brinn, and the Rider on Din, then by Cail and Linden on Clash, Sunder and Stell on Clang, Harn and Hollian on Clangor. Vain brought up the rear as if he were being sucked along without volition in the wake of the Coursers.
Covenant dozed repeatedly throughout the day. He had been too severely drained; he could not keep himself awake. Whenever the company paused for food, water, and rest, he consumed all the aliment he was given, striving to recover some semblance of strength. But between stops the rocking of Din’s stride unmoored his awareness, so that he rode tides of dream and dread and insects, and could not anchor himself.
In periods of wakefulness, he knew from the rigidity of Memla’s back that she wanted to flee and flee, and never stop. She, too, knew vividly what the Grim could do. But, toward evening, her endurance gave out. Under the shelter of a prodigious Gilden, she halted the quest for the night.
At first, while she started a fire, the air thronged with flying bugs of every description; and the boughs and leaves of the tree seethed with things which crawled and bored. But voure protected the company. And gradually, as dusk seeped into the jungle, macerating the effect of the Sunbane, the insects began to disappear.
Their viscid stridulation faded as they retreated into gestation or sleep. Memla seated her weary bones beside the fire, dismissed the Coursers, and let the Haruchai care for her companions.