Power That Preserves

  “I do not know. Perhaps the same being who slew Elena bore the Staff to Foul’s Creche—perhaps it is dead Kevin himself who wields the Staff on Foul’s behalf, so that the Despiser need not personally use a power not apt for his control. But I have felt the Staff, Mhoram—the Staff of Law beyond all question.”

  Mhoram nodded, fought to contain the amazed fear that seemed to echo inimitably within him. The Staff! Battle raged around him; he could afford neither time nor strength for anything but the immediate task. Lord Foul held the Staff! If he allowed himself to think about such a thing, he might lose himself in panic. Eyes flashing, he gave Trevor’s shoulder a hard clasp of praise and comradeship, then turned back toward the courtyard.

  For a moment, he pushed his perceptions through the din and clangor, bent his senses to assess Revelstone’s situation. He could feel Lord Amatin atop the tower, still waging her fire against the dead. She was weakening—her continuous exertions had long since passed the normal limits of her stamina—yet she kept her ragged blaze striking downward, fighting as if she meant to spend her last pulse or breath in the tower’s defense. And her labor had its effect. Though she could not stop even a tenth of the shambling shapes, she had now broken so many of them that the unbound sand clogged the approaches to the tunnel. Fewer of the dead could plow forward at one time; her work, and the constriction of the tunnel, slowed their march, slowed the multiplication of their pressure on the inner gates.

  But while she strove, battle began to mount up through the tower toward her. Few Cavewights now tried to enter through the doors. Their own dead blocked the corridors; and while they fought for access, they were exposed to the archers of the Keep. But enemies were breaching the tower somehow; Mhoram could hear loud combat surging upward through the tower’s complex passages. With an effort, he ignored everything else around him, concentrated on the tower. Then through the hoarse commands, the clash of weapons, the raw cries of hunger and pain, the tumult of urgent feet, he sensed Satansfist’s attack on the outer wall of the tower. The Raver threw fierce bolts of Illearth power at the exposed coigns and windows, occasionally at Lord Amatin herself; and under the cover of these blasts, his creatures threw up ladders against the wall, swarmed through the openings.

  In the stone under his feet, High Lord Mhoram could feel the inner gates groaning.

  Quickly he turned to one of the warriors, a tense Stonedownor woman. “Go to the tower. Find Warmark Quaan. Say that I command him to withdraw from the tower. Say that he must bring Lord Amatin with him. Go.”

  She saluted and ran. A few moments later, he saw her dash over the courtyard along one of the crosswalks.

  By that time, he had already returned to the battle. With Lord Trevor working doggedly at his side, he renewed his attack on the earthen pressure building against Revelstone’s inner gates. While the supportive power of the Gravelingases vibrated in the stone under him, he gathered all his accumulated ferocity and drove it at the crush of dead. Now he knew clearly what he hoped to achieve; he wanted to cover the flagstones of the courtyard with so much sand that the blind, shambling shapes would have no solid footing from which to press forward. Trevor’s aid seemed to uplift his effectiveness, and he shattered dead by tens and scores until his staff hummed in his hands and the air around him became so charged with blue force that he appeared to emanate Lords-fire.

  Yet while he labored, wielded his power like a scythe through Satansfist’s ill crop, he kept part of his attention cocked toward the crosswalks. He was watching for Quaan and Amatin.

  A short time later, the first crosswalk fell. The battered remnant of an Eoman dashed along it out of the tower, rabidly pursued by Cavewights. Archers sent the Cavewights plunging to the courtyard, and as soon as the warriors were safe, the walk’s cables were cut. The wooden span swung clattering down and crashed against the wall of the tower.

  The tumult of battle echoed out of the tower. Abruptly Warmark Quaan appeared on one of the upper spans. Yelling stridently to make himself heard, he ordered all except the two highest crosswalks cut.

  Mhoram shouted up to the Warmark, “Amatin!”

  Quaan nodded, ran back into the tower.

  The next two spans fell promptly, but the sentries at the third waited. After a moment, several injured warriors stumbled out onto the walk. Supporting each other, carrying the crippled, they struggled toward the Keep. But then a score of Stone-born creatures charged madly out of the tower. Defying arrows and swords, they threw the injured off the span and rushed on across the walk.

  Grimly, deliberately, the sentries cut the cables.

  Every enemy that appeared in the doorways where the spans had been was killed or beaten back by a hail of fiery arrows. The higher crosswalks fell in swift succession. Only two remained for the survivors in the tower.

  Now Lord Trevor was panting dizzily at the High Lord’s side, and Mhoram himself felt weak with strain. But he could not afford to rest. Tohrm’s Gravelingases would not be able to hold the gates alone.

  Yet his flame lost its vehemence as the urgent moments passed. Fear for Quaan and Amatin disrupted his concentration. He wanted intensely to go after them. Warriors were escaping constantly across the last two spans, and he watched their flight with dread in his throat, aching to see their leaders.

  One more span went down.

  He stopped fighting altogether when Quaan appeared alone in the doorway of the last crosswalk.

  Quaan shouted across to the Keep, but Mhoram could not make out the words. He watched with clenched breath as four warriors raced toward the Warmark.

  Then a blue-robed figure moved behind Quaan—Amatin. But the two made no move to escape. When the warriors reached them, they both disappeared back into the tower.

  Stifling in helplessness, Mhoram stared at the empty doorway as if the strength of his desire might bring the two back. He could hear the Raver’s hordes surging constantly upward.

  A moment later, the four warriors reappeared. Between them, they carried Hearthrall Borillar.

  He dangled in their hands as if he were dead.

  Quaan and Amatin followed the four. When they all had gained the Keep, the last crosswalk fell. It seemed to make no sound amid the clamor from the tower.

  A mist passed across Mhoram’s sight. He found that he was leaning heavily on Trevor; while he gasped for breath, he could not stand alone. But the Lord upheld him. When his faintness receded, he met Trevor’s gaze and smiled wanly.

  Without a word, they turned back to the defense of the gates.

  The tower had been lost, but the battle was not done. Unhindered now by Amatin’s fire, the dead were slowly able to push a path through the sand. The weight of their assault began to mount again. And the sensation of wrong that they sent shuddering through the stone increased. The High Lord felt Revelstone’s pain growing around him until it seemed to come from all sides. If he had not been so starkly confronted with these dead, he might have believed that the Keep was under attack at other points as well. But the present need consumed his attention. Revelstone’s only hope lay in burying the gates with sand before they broke.

  He sensed Tohrm’s arrival behind him, but did not turn until Quaan and Lord Amatin had joined the Hearthrall. Then he dropped his power and faced the three of them.

  Amatin was on the edge of prostration. Her eyes ached in the waifish pallor of her face; her hair stuck to her face in sweaty strands. When she spoke, her voice quivered. “He took a bolt meant for me. Borillar—he—I did not see samadhi’s aim in time.”

  A moment passed before Mhoram found the self-mastery to ask quietly, “Is he dead?”

  “No. The Healers—he will live. He is a Hirebrand—not defenseless.” She dropped to the stone and slumped against the wall as if the thews which held her up had snapped.

  “I had forgotten he was with you,” Mhoram murmured. “I am ashamed.”

  “You are ashamed!” The rough croak of Quaan’s voice caught at Mhoram’s attention. The Warmark’s face and
arms were smeared with Wood, but he appeared uninjured. He could not meet Mhoram’s gaze. “The tower—lost!” He bit the words bitterly. “It is I who am ashamed. No Warmark would permit— Warmark Hile Troy would have found a means to preserve it.”

  “Then find a means to aid us,” Tohrm groaned. “These gates cannot hold.”

  The livid desperation in his tone pulled all the eyes on the abutment toward him. Tears streamed down his face as if he would never stop weeping, and his hands flinched distractedly in front of him, seeking something impossible in the air, something that would not break. And the gates moaned at him as if they were witnessing to the truth of his distress.

  “We cannot,” he went on. “Cannot. Such force! May the stones forgive me! I am—we are unequal to this stress.”

  Quaan turned sharply on his heel and strode away, shouting for timbers and Hirebrands to shore up the gates.

  But Tohrm did not seem to hear the Warmark. His wet gaze held Mhoram as he whispered, “We are prevented. Something ill maims our strength. We do not comprehend— High Lord, is there other wrong here? Other wrong than weight and dead violence? I hear—all Revelstone’s great rock cries out to me of evil.”

  High Lord Mhoram’s senses veered, and he swung into resonance with the gut-rock of the Keep as if he were melding himself with the stone. He felt all the weight of samadhi’s dead concentrated as if it were impending squarely against him; he felt his own soul gates groaning, detonating, cracking. For an instant, like an ignition of prophecy, he became the Keep, took its life and pain into himself, experienced the horrific might which threatened to rend it—and something else, too, something distinct, private, terrible. When he heard frantic feet clattering toward him along the main hall, he knew that Tohrm had glimpsed the truth.

  One of the two men Mhoram had sent to watch over Trell dashed forward, jerked to a halt. His face was as white as terror, and he could hardly thrust words stuttering through his teeth.

  “High Lord, come! He!—the Close! Oh, help him!”

  Amatin covered her head with her arms as if she could not bear any more. But the High Lord said, “I hear you. Remember who you are. Speak clearly.”

  The man gulped sickly several times. “Trell—you sent—he immolates himself. He will destroy the Close.”

  A hoarse cry broke from Tohrm, and Amatin gasped, “Melenkurion!” Mhoram stared at the warrior as if he could not believe what he had heard. But he believed it; he felt the truth of it. He was appalled by the dreadful understanding that this knowledge also had come too late. Once again, he had failed of foresight, failed to meet the needs of the Keep. Spun by irrefusable exigencies, he wheeled on Lord Trevor and demanded, “Where is Loerya?”

  For the first time since his rescue, Trevor’s exaltation wavered. He stood in his own blood as if his injury had no power to hurt him, but the mention of his wife pained him like a flaw in his new courage. “She,” he began, then stopped to swallow thickly. “She has left the Keep. Last night—she took the children upland—to find a place of hiding. So that they would be safe.”

  “By the Seven!” Mhoram barked, raging at all his failures rather than at Trevor. “She is needed!” Revelstone’s situation was desperate, and neither Trevor nor Amatin were in any condition to go on fighting. For an instant, Mhoram felt that the dilemma could not be resolved, that he could not make these decisions for the Keep. But he was Mhoram son of Variol, High Lord by the choice of the Council. He had said to the warrior: Remember who you are. He had said it to Tohrm. He was High Lord Mhoram, incapable of surrender. He struck the stone with his staff so that its iron heel rang, and sprang to his work.

  “Lord Trevor, can you hold the gates?”

  Trevor met Mhoram’s gaze. “Do not fear, High Lord. If they can be held, I will hold them.”

  “Good.” The High Lord turned his back on the courtyard. “Lord Amatin-Hearthrall Tohrm—will you aid me?”

  For answer, Tohrm met the outreach of Amatin’s arm and helped her to her feet.

  Taking the fear-blanched warrior by the arm, Mhoram hastened away into the Keep.

  As he strode through the halls toward the Close, he asked the warrior to tell him what had happened. “He—it—” the man stammered. But then he seemed to draw a measure of steadiness from Mhoram’s grip. “It surpassed me, High Lord.”

  “What has happened?” repeated Mhoram firmly.

  “At your command, we followed him. When he learned that we did not mean to leave him, he reviled us. But his cursing showed us a part of the reason for your command. We were resolved to obey you. At last he turned from us like a broken man and led us to the Close.

  “There he went to the great graveling pit and knelt beside it. While we watched over him from the doors, he wept and prayed, begging. High Lord, it is in my heart that he begged for peace. But he found no peace. When he raised his head, we saw—we saw abomination in his face. He—the graveling—flame came from the fire-stones. Fire sprang from the floor. We ran down to him. But the flames forbade us. They consumed my comrade. I ran to you.”

  The words chilled Mhoram’s heart, but he replied to meet the pain and faltering in the warrior’s face. “His Oath of Peace was broken. He lost self-trust, and fell into despair. This is the shadow of the Gray Slayer upon him.”

  After a moment, the warrior said hesitantly, “I have heard—it is said—is this not the Unbeliever’s doing?”

  “Perhaps. In some measure, the Unbeliever is Lord Foul’s doing. But Trell’s despair is also in part my doing. It is Trell’s own doing. The Slayer’s great strength is that our mortal weakness may be so turned against us.”

  He spoke as calmly as he could, but before he was within a hundred yards of the Close, he began to feel the heat of the flames. He had no doubt that this was the source of the other ill Tohrm had sensed. Hot waves of desecration radiated in all directions from the council chamber. As he neared the high wooden doors, he saw that they were smoldering, nearly aflame, and the walls shimmered as if the stone were about to melt. He was panting for breath, wincing against the heat, even before he reached the open doorway and looked down into the Close.

  An inferno raged within it. Floor, tables, seats—all burned madly, spouted roaring flames like a convulsion of thunder. Heat scorched Mhoram’s face, crisped his hair. He had to blink tears away before he could peer down through the conflagration to its center.

  There Trell stood in the graveling pit like the core of a holocaust, bursting with flames and hurling great gouts of fire at the ceiling with both fists. His whole form blazed like incarnated damnation, white-hot torment striking out at the stone it loved and could not save.

  The sheer power of it staggered Mhoram. He was looking at the onset of a Ritual of Desecration. Trell had found in his own despair the secret which Mhoram had guarded so fearfully, and he was using that secret against Revelstone. If he were not stopped, the gates would only be the first part of the Keep to break, the first and least link in a chain of destruction which might tear the whole plateau to rubble.

  He had to be stopped. That was imperative. But Mhoram was not a Gravelingas, had no stone-lore to counter the might which made this fire possible. He turned to Tohrm.

  “You are of the rhadhamaerl!” he shouted over the raving of the fire. “You must silence this flame!”

  “Silence it?” Tohrm was staring, aghast, into the blaze; he had the stricken look of a man witnessing the ravage of his dearest love. “Silence it?” He did not shout; Mhoram could only comprehend him by reading his lips. “I have no strength to equal this. I am a Gravelingas of the rhadhamaerl—not Earthpower incarnate. He will destroy us all.”

  “Tohrm!” the High Lord cried. “You are the Hearthrall of Lord’s Keep! You or no one can meet this need!”

  Tohrm mouthed soundlessly, “How?”

  “I will accompany you! I will give you my strength—I will place all my power in you!”

  The Hearthrall’s eyes rolled fearfully away from the Close and hauled t
hemselves by sheer force of will into focus on the High Lord’s face.

  “We will burn.”

  “We will endure!”

  Tohrm met Mhoram’s demand for a long moment. Then he groaned. He could not refuse to give himself for the sake of the Keep’s stone. “If you are with me,” he said silently through the roar.

  Mhoram whirled to Amatin. “Tohrm and I will go into the Close. You must preserve us from the fire. Put your power around us—protect us.”

  She nodded distractedly, pushed a damp strand of hair out of her face. “Go,” she said weakly. “Already the table melts.”

  The High Lord saw that she was right. Before their eyes, the table slumped into magma, poured down to the lowest level of the Close and into the pit around Trell’s feet.

  Mhoram called his power into readiness and rested the shaft of his staff on Tohrm’s shoulder. Together they faced the Close, waited while Amatin built a defense around them. The sensation of it swarmed over their skin like hiving insects, but it kept back the heat.

  When she signaled to them, they started down into the Close as if they were struggling into a furnace.

  Despite Amatin’s protection, the heat slammed into them like the fist of a cataclysm. Tohrm’s tunic began to scorch. Mhoram felt his own robe blackening. All the hair on their heads and arms shriveled. But the High Lord put heat out of his mind; he concentrated on his staff and Tohrm. He could feel the Hearthrall singing now, though he heard nothing but the deep, ravenous howl of the blaze. Tuning his power to the pitch of Tohrm’s song, he sent all his resources running through it.

  The savage flames backed slightly away from them as they moved, and patches of unburned rock appeared like stepping-stones under Tohrm’s feet. They walked downward like a gap in the hell of Trell’s rage.

  But the conflagration sealed behind them instantly. As they drew farther from the doors, Amatin’s defense weakened; distance and flame interfered. Mhoram’s flesh stung where his robe smoldered against it, and his eyes hurt so badly that he could no longer see. Tohrm’s song became more and more like a scream as they descended. By the time they reached the level of the pit, where Loric’s krill still stood embedded in its stone, Mhoram knew that if he did not take his strength away from Tohrm and use it for protection they would both roast at Trell’s feet.