Lord Foul's Bane (50 page)

But all the time he rode slumped agedly in his saddle, with his head bowed as if he were readying his neck for the stroke of an axe. He seemed to have spent all his strength in pulling his companions through the storm. Whenever he spoke, his long years rattled in his throat.

The next morning, the sun came up like a wound into ashen skies. Grey clouds overhung the earth, and a shuddering wind fell like a groan from the slopes of Mount Thunder. Across the wasteland, the pools of rainwater began to stagnate, as if the ground refused to drink the moisture, leaving it to rot instead. And as they prepared to ride, the Questers heard a low rumble like the march of drums- deep in the rock. They could feel the throb in their feet, in their knee joints.

It was the beat of mustering war.

The High Lord answered as if it were a challenge. “
Melenkurion
!” he called clearly. “Arise, champions of the Land! I hear the drums of the Earth! This is the great work of our time!” He swung onto his horse with his blue robe fluttering.

Warhaft Quaan responded with a cheer, “Hail, High Lord Prothall! We are proud to follow!”

Prothall's shoulders squared. His horse lifted its ears, raised its head, took a few prancing steps as grandly as a Ranyhyn. The Ranyhyn nickered humorously at the sight, and the company rode after Prothall boldly, as if the spirits of the ancient Lords were in them.

They made their way to the slopes of Mount Thunder through the constant buried rumble of the drums. As they found a path across the thickening rubble which surrounded the mountain, the booming subterranean call accompanied them like an exhalation of Despite. But when they started up the first battered sides of the Peak, they forgot the drums; they had to concentrate on the climb. The foothills were like a gnarled stone mantle which Mount Thunder had shrugged from its shoulders in ages long past, and the way, westward over the slopes was hard. Time and again, the riders were forced to dismount to lead their mounts down tricky hills or over grey piles of tumbled, ashen rock. The difficulty of the terrain made their progress slow, despite all the Ramen could do to search out the easiest trails. The Peak seemed to lean gravely over them as if watching their small struggles. And down onto them from the towering cliffs came a chilling wind, as cold as winter.

At noon, Prothall halted in a deep gully which ran down the mountainside like a cut. There the company rested and ate. When they were not moving, they could hear the drums clearly, and the cold wind seemed to pounce on them from the cliffs above. They sat in the straight light of the sun and shivered- some at the cold, others at the drums.

During the halt, Mhoram came over to Covenant and suggested that they climb a way up the gully together. Covenant nodded; he was glad to keep himself busy. He followed the Lord up the cut's contorted spine until they reached a break in its west wall. Mhoram entered the break; and when Covenant stepped in behind the Lord, he got a broad, sudden view of Andelain.

From the altitude of the break between the stone walls he felt that he was looking down over Andelain from a window in the side of Mount Thunder. The Hills lay richly over all the western horizon, and their beauty took his breath away. He stared hungrily with a feeling of stasis, of perfect pause in his chest, like a quick grip of eternity. The lush, clear health of Andelain shone like a country of stars despite the grey skies and the dull battle-roll. He felt obscurely unwilling to breathe, to break the trance, but after a moment his lungs began to hurt for air.

“Here is the Land,” Mhoram whispered. “Grim, powerful Mount Thunder above us. The darkest banes and secrets of the Earth in the catacombs beneath our feet. The battleground behind. Sarangrave Flat below. And there- priceless Andelain, the beauty of life. Yes. This is the heart of the Land.” He stood reverently, as if he felt himself to be in an august presence.

Covenant looked at him. “So you brought me up here to convince me that this is worth fighting for.” His mouth twisted on the bitter taste of shame. “You want something from me- some declaration of allegiance. Before you have to face Drool.” The Cavewights he had slain lay hard and cold in his memory.

“Of course,” the Lord replied. “But it is the Land itself which asks for your allegiance.” Then he said with sudden intensity, “Behold, Thomas Covenant. Use your eyes. Look upon it all. Look and listen hear the drums. And hear me. This is the heart of the Land. It is not the home of the Despiser. He has no place here. Oh, he desires the power of the banes, but his home is in Foul's Creche- not here. He has not depth or sternness or beauty enough for this place, and when he works here it is through ur-viles or Cavewights. Do you see?”

“I see.” Covenant met the Lord's gaze flatly. “I've already made my bargain- my `peace,' if you want to call it that. I'm not going to do any more killing.”

“Your “peace”?” Mhoram echoed in a complex tone. Slowly, the danger dimmed in his eyes. “Well, you must pardon me. In times of trouble, some Lords behave strangely.” He passed Covenant and started back down the gully.

Covenant remained in the window for a moment, watching Mhoram go. He had not missed the Lord's oblique reference to Kevin; but he wondered what kinship Mhoram saw between himself and the Landwaster. Did the Lord believe himself capable of that kind of despair?

Muttering silently, Covenant returned to the company. He saw a measuring look in the eyes of the warriors; they were trying to assess what had occurred between him and Lord Mhoram. But he did not care what portents they read into him. When the company moved on, he led Dura up the side of the gully, blank to the shifting shale which more than once dropped him to his hands and knees, scratching and bruising him dangerously. He was thinking about the Celebration of Spring, about the battle of Soaring Woodhelven, about children and Llaura and Pietten and Atiaran and the nameless Unfettered One and Lena and Triock and the warrior who had died defending him- thinking, and striving to tell himself that his bargain was secure, that he was not angry enough to risk fighting again.

That afternoon, the company struggled on over the arduous ground, drawing slowly higher as they worked westward. They caught no glimpses of their destination. Even when the sun fell low in the sky, and the roar of waters became a distinct accompaniment to the buried beat of the drums, they were still not able to see the Gorge. But then they entered a sheer, sheltered ravine in the mountainside. From this ravine a rift too narrow for the horses angled away into the rock, and through it they could hear a snarling current. In the ravine the riders left their mounts under the care of the Cords. They went ahead on foot down the rift as it curved into the mountain and then broke out of the cliff no more than a hundred feet directly above Treacher's Gorge.

They no longer heard the drums; the tumult of the river smothered every sound but their own half-shouts. The walls of the chasm were high and sheer, blocking the horizon on either side. But through the spray that covered them like a mist, they could see the Gorge itself- the tight rock channel constricting the river until it appeared to scream, and the wild, white, sunset flame-plumed water thrashing as if it fought against its own frantic rush. From nearly a league away to the west, the river came writhing down the Gorge, and sped below the company into the guts of the mountain as if sucked into an abyss. Above the Gorge, the setting sun hung near the horizon like a ball of blood in the leaden sky; and the light gave a shade of fire to the few hardy trees that clung to the rims of the chasm as if rooted by duty. But within Treacher's Gorge was nothing but spray and sheer stone walls and tortured waters.

The roar inundated Covenant's ears, and the mist wet rock seemed to slip under his feet. For an instant, the cliffs reeled; he could feel the maw of Mount Thunder gaping for him. Then he snatched himself back into the rift, stood with his back pressed against the rock, hugged his chest and fought not to gasp.

There was activity around him. He heard shouts of surprise and fear from the warriors at the end of the rift, heard Foamfollower's strangled howl. But he did not move. He clenched himself against the rock in the mist and roar of the river until his knees steadied, and the scream of slippage eased in his feet. Only then did he go to find out what caused the distress of his companions. He kept one hand braced on the wall and moved the other from shoulder to shoulder among the company as he went forward.

Between Covenant and the cliff, Foamfollower struggled. Two Bloodguard clung to his arms, and he battered them against the sides of the rift, hissing rapaciously, “Release me! Release-! I want them!” As if he wished to leap down into the Gorge.

“No!” Abruptly, Prothall stood before the Giant. The backlight of the sunset dimmed his face as he stood silhouetted against the glow with his arms wide and his staff held high. He was old, and only half the Giant's size. But the orange-red fire seemed to expand him, make him taller, more full of authority. “Rockbrother! Master yourself! By the Seven! Do you rave?”

At that, Foamfollower threw off the Bloodguard. He caught the front of Prothall's robe, heaved the High Lord into the air, pinned him against the wall. Into his face, the Giant wheezed as if he were choking with rage, “Rave? Do you accuse me?”

The Bloodguard sprang toward Foamfollower. But a shout from Mhoram stopped them. Prothall hung clamped against the stone like a handful of old rags, but his eyes did not flinch. He repeated, “Do you rave?”

For one horrible moment, Foamfollower held the High Lord as if he meant to murder him with one huge squeeze of his fist. Covenant tried to think of something to say, some way to intervene, but could not. He had no conception of what had happened to Foamfollower.

Then from behind Covenant First Mark Tuvor said clearly, “A Raver? In one of the Seareach Giants? Impossible.”

As if impaled by Tuvor's assertion, Foamfollower broke into a convulsion of coughing. The violence of his reaction knotted his gnarled frame. He lowered Prothall, then collapsed backward, falling with a thud against the opposite wall. Slowly, his paroxysm changed into a low chuckle like the glee of hysteria.

Heard through the groaning of the river, that sound made Covenant's skin crawl like a slimy caress. He could not abide it. Driven by a need to learn what had befallen Foamfollower, he moved forward to look into the Gorge.

There, braced now against his vertigo and the inundation of the river roar, he saw what had ignited Foamfollower. Ah, Giant! he groaned. To kill-! Below him and barely twenty feet above the level of the river was a narrow roadway like a ledge in the south wall of the Gorge. And along the roadway to the beat of unheard drums marched an army of Cavewights out of Mount Thunder. Captained by a wedge of ur-viles, file after file of the gangrel creatures jerked out of the mountain and tramped along the ledge with a glare of lust in their laval eyes. Thousands had already left their Wightwarrens; and behind them the files continued as if Mount Thunder were spewing all the hordes of its inhabiting vermin onto the undefended Earth.

Foamfollower!

For a moment, Covenant's heart beat to the rhythm of the Giant's pain. He could not bear to think that Foamfollower and his people might lose their hope of Home because of creatures like those.

Is killing the only answer?

Numbly, half blindly, he began looking for the way in which Foamfollower had meant to reach the ledge and the Cavewights.

He found it easily enough; it looked simple for anyone not timorous of heights. There was a rude, slick stair cut into the rock of the south wall from the rift down to the roadway. Opposite it were steps which went from the rift up to the top of the Gorge. They were as grey, spray-worn and old as native stone.

Lord Mhoram had come up behind Covenant. His voice reached dimly through the river roar. "This is the ancient Look of Treacher's Gorge. That part of the First Ward which tells of this place is easily understood. It was formed for the watch and concealment of the betrayers. For here at Treacher's Gorge, Lord

Foul the Despiser revealed his true self to High Lord Kevin. Here was struck the first blow of the open war which ended in the Ritual of Desecration.

"Before that time, Kevin Landwaster doubted Lord Foul without knowing why- for the Despiser had enacted no ill which Kevin could discover- and he showed trust for Lord Foul out of shame for his unworthy doubt. Then, through the Despiser's plotting, a message came to the Council of Lords from the Demondim in Mount Thunder. The message asked the Lords to come to the Demondim loreworks, the spawning crypts where the ur-viles were made, to meet with the loremasters, who claimed knowledge of a secret power.

“Clearly, Lord Foul intended for Kevin to go to Mount Thunder. But the High Lord doubted, and did not go. Then he was ashamed of his doubt, and sent in his stead some of his truest friends and strongest allies. So a high company of the Old Lords rafted as was their wont down the Soulsease through Andelain to Mount Thunder. And here, in the roar and spray and ill of Treacher's Gorge, they were ambushed by ur-viles. They were slaughtered, and their bodies sent to the abyss of the mountain. Then marched armies like these out of the catacombs, and the Land was plunged all unready into war.

“That long conflict went on battle after death littered battle without hope. High Lord Kevin fought bravely. But he had sent his friends into ambush. Soon he began his midnight meetings with despair- and there was no hope.”