Lord Foul's Bane

Twenty Four: The Calling of Lions

THEY came in a mass of red eyes dull with empty determination. But Lord Foul's bodiless laughter seemed to slow them. They waded through it as if it were a quagmire, and their difficult approach gave the company time to react. At Quaan's command, the warriors ringed Mhoram and Prothall. The Bloodguard took fighting positions with the Eoman.

Mhoram called to Covenant.

Slowly, Covenant raised his head. He looked at his companions, and they seemed pitifully few to him. He tried to get to his feet. But Tuvor was too heavy for him to lift. Even in death, the massive devotion of the First Mark surpassed his strength.

He heard Manethrall Lithe shout, “This way! I know the way!” She was dodging among the Cavewights toward one of the entrances. He watched her go as if he had already forsaken her. He could not lift Tuvor because he could not get a grip with his right hand; two fingers were not enough.

Then Bannor snatched him away from the fallen First Mark, thrust him toward the protective ring of the Eoman. Covenant resisted. “You can't leave him!” But Bannor forced him among the warriors. “What are you doing?” he protested. “We've got to take him along. If you don't send him back, he won't be replaced.” He spun to appeal to the Lords. “You can't leave him!”

Mhoram's lips stretched taut over his teeth. “We must.”

From the mouth of the tunnel she had chosen, Lithe called, “Here!” She clenched her cord around a Cavewight's neck, and used the creature's body to protect herself from attack. “This is the way!” Other Cavewights converged on her, forced her backward.

In response, Prothall lit his old staff, swung it, and led a charge toward her. With Mhoram's help, he burned passage for his companions through the massed Cavewights.

Bright Lords-fire intimidated the creatures. But before the company had gained the tunnel Lithe had chosen, a wedge of ur-viles drove snarling into the chamber from a nearby entrance. They were led by a mighty loremaster, as black as the catacombs, wielding an iron stave that looked wet with power or blood.

Prothall cried, “Runt” The Questers dashed for the tunnel.

The ur-viles raced to intercept them.

The company was faster. Prothall and Mhoram gained the passage, and parted to let the others enter between them.

But one of the warriors decided to help his comrades escape. He suddenly veered away from the Eoman. Whirling his sword fervidly, he threw himself at the ur-vile wedge.

Mhoram yelled, started back out into the chamber to help him. But the loremaster brushed the warrior aside with a slap of its stave, and he fell. Dark moisture covered him from head to foot; he screamed as if he had been drenched in acid. Mhoram barely evaded the stave's backstroke, retreated to Prothall's side in the mouth of the passage.

There they tried to stand. They opposed their blazing blue flame to the ur-viles. The loremaster struck at them again and again; they blocked each blow with their staffs; gouts of flaming fluid, igniting blue and then turning quickly black, spattered on all sides at every clash. But the wedge fought with a savagery which drove the Lords backward step by step into the tunnel.

Quaan tried to counter by having his strongest archers loose arrows at the loremaster. But the shafts were useless. They caught fire in the ur-viles' black power and burned to ashes.

Behind the company, Lithe was chaffing to pursue the guide of her instinct for daylight. She called repeatedly for the Lords to follow her. But they could not; they did not dare turn their backs on the wedge.

Each clash drove them backward. For all their courage and resolve, they were nearly exhausted, and every blow of the loremaster's stave weakened them further. Now their flame had a less rampant blaze, and the burning gouts turned black more swiftly. It was clear, that they could not keep up the fight. And no one in the company could take it for them.

Abruptly, Mhoram shouted, “Back! Make room!”

His urgency allowed no refusal; even the Bloodguard obeyed.

“Covenant!” Mhoram cried.

Covenant moved forward until he was only an arm's length from the searing battle.

“Raise your ring!”

Compelled by Mhoram's intensity, the Unbeliever lifted his left hand. A crimson cast still stained the heart of his wedding band.

The loremaster observed the ring as if suddenly smelling its presence. It recognized white gold, hesitated. The wedge halted, though the loremaster did not drop its guard.

“Melenkurion abatha!” Mhoram commanded. “Blast them!”

Half intuitively, Covenant understood. He jabbed at the loremaster with his left fist as if launching a bolt.

Barking in strident fear, the whole wedge recoiled.

In that instant, the Lords acted. Shouting, “Minas mill khabaal!” on different pitches in half-screamed harmony, they drew with their fire an X which barricaded the tunnel from top to bottom. The flame of the X hung in the air; and before it could die, Prothall placed his staff erect within it. At once, a sheet of blue flared in the passage.

Howling in rage at Mhoram's ruse, the ur-viles sprang forward. The loremaster struck hugely at the flame with its stave. The fiery wall rippled and fluttered-but did not let the wedge pass.

Prothall and Mhoram took only a moment to see how their power held. Then they turned and dashed down the tunnel.

Gasping for breath, Mhoram told the company, “We have forbidden the tunnel! But it will not endure. We are not strong enough-the High Lord's staff was needed to make any forbidding at all. And the ur-viles are savage. Drool drives them mad with the Illearth Stone.” In spite of his haste, his voice carried a shudder. “Now we must run. We must escape-must! All our work will go for nothing if we do not take both Staff and Ward to safety.”

“Come!” the Manethrall responded. “I know grass and sky. I can find the way.”

Prothall nodded agreement, but his movements were slow, despite the need for alacrity. He was exhausted, driven far past the normal limits of his stamina. With his breath rattling deep in his chest as if he were drowning in the phlegm of his age, he leaned heavily on the Staff of Law. “Go!” he panted. “Run!”

Two Bloodguard took his arms, and between them he stumbled into a slow run down the passage. Rallying around him, the company started away after Lithe.

At first, they went easily. Their tunnel offered few branchings; at each of these, Lithe seemed instantly sure which held the greatest promise of daylight. Lit from behind by Mhoram's staff, she loped forward as if following a warm trail of freedom.

After the struggles of close combat, the company found relief in simple, single-minded running. It allowed them to focus and conserve their strength. Furthermore, they were passing, as if slowly liberated, out of the range of Lord Foul's laughter. Soon they could hear neither mockery nor threat of slaughter at their backs. For once, the silent darkness befriended them.

For nearly a league, they hastened onward. They began to traverse a section of the catacombs which was intricate with small caves and passages and turnings, but which appeared to contain no large halls, crevices, wightworks. Throughout these multiplied corridors, Lithe did not hesitate. Several times she took ways which inclined slowly upward.

But as the complex tunnels opened into broader and blacker ways, where Mhoram's flame illumined no cave walls or ceilings, the catacombs became more hostile. Gradually, the silence changed-lost the hue of relief, and became the hush of ambush. The darkness around Mhoram's light seemed to conceal more and more. At the turnings and intersections, night thickened in their choices, clouding Lithe's instinct. She began to falter.

Behind her, Prothall grew less and less able to keep up the pace. His hoarse, wheezing breath was increasingly laboured; even the weariest Questers could hear his gasps over their own hard panting. The Bloodguard were almost carrying him.

Still they pushed on into stark midnight. They bore the Staff of Law and the Second Ward, and could not afford surrender.

Then they reached a high cave which formed a crossroads for several tunnels. The general direction they had maintained since Kiril Threndor was continued by one passage across the cave. But Lithe stopped in the centre of the junction as if she had been reined to a halt. She searched about her uncertainly, confused by the number of her choices-and by some intuitive rejection of her only obvious selection. Shaking her head as if resisting a bit, she groaned, “Ah, Lords. I do not know.”

Mhoram snapped, “You must!” We have no other chance. The old maps do not show these ways. You have led us far beyond our ken." He gripped her shoulder as if he meant to force her decision. But the next moment he was distracted by Prothall. With a sharp spasm of coughing, the High Lord collapsed to the floor.

One Bloodguard quickly propped him into a sitting position, and Mhoram knelt beside him, peering with intent concern into his old face. “Rest briefly,” mumbled Mhoram. “Our forbidding has long since broken. We must not delay.”

Between fits of coughing, the High Lord replied, “Leave me. Take the Staff and go. I am done.”

His words appalled the company. Covenant and the warriors covered their own breathing to hear Mhoram's answer. The air was suddenly intense with a fear that Mhoram would accept Prothall's sacrifice.

But Mhoram said nothing.

“Leave me,” Prothall repeated. “Give your staff to me, and I will defend your retreat as I can. Go, I say. I am old. I have had my time of triumph. I lose nothing. Take the Staff and go.” When the Lord still did not speak, he rattled in supplication, “Mhoram, hear me. Do not let my old bones destroy this high Quest.”

“I hear you.” Mhoram's voice sounded thick and wounded in his throat. He knelt with his head bowed.

But a moment later he rose to his feet, and put back his head, and began to laugh. It was quiet laughter-unfeverish and unforced-the laughter of relief and indespair. The company gaped at it until they understood that it was not hysteria. Then, without knowing why, they laughed in response. Humour ran like a clean wind through their hearts.

Covenant almost cursed aloud because he could not share it.

When they had subsided into low chuckling, Mhoram said to the High Lord, “Ah, Prothall son of Dwillian. It is good that you are old. Leave you? How will I be able to take pleasure in telling Osondrea of your great exploits if you are not there to protest my boasting?” Gaily, he laughed again. Then, as if recollecting himself, he returned to where Lithe stood bewildered in the centre of the cave.

“Manethrall,” he said gently, “you have done well. Your instinct is true-remember it now. Put all doubt away. We do not fear to follow where your heart leads.”

Covenant had noticed that she, too, had not joined the laughter of the company. Her eyes were troubled; he guessed that her swift blood had been offended by Mhoram's earlier sharpness. But she nodded gravely to the Lord. “That is well. My thoughts do not trust my heart.”

“In what way?”

“My thoughts say that we must continue as we have come. But my heart wishes to go there.” She indicated a tunnel opening back almost in the direction from which-they had come. “I do not know,” she concluded simply. “This is new to me.”

But Mhoram's reply held no hesitation. “You are Manethrall Lithe of the Ramen. You have served the Ranyhyn. You know grass and sky. Trust your heart.”

After a moment, Lithe accepted his counsel.

Two Bloodguard helped Prothall to his feet. Supporting him between them, they joined the company and followed Lithe's instinct into the tunnel.

This passage soon began to descend slowly, and they set a good pace down it. They were buoyed along by the hope that their pursuers would not guess what they were doing, and so would neither cut them off nor follow them directly. But in the universal darkness and silence, they had no assurances. Their way met no branchings, but it wavered as if it were tracing a vein in the mountain. Finally it opened into a vast impression of blank space, and began to climb a steep, serrated rock face through a series of switchbacks. Now the company had to toil upward.

The difficulties of the ascent slowed them as much as the climbing. The higher they went, the colder the air became, and the more there seemed to be a wind blowing in the dark gulf beside them. But the cold and the wind only accented their dripping sweat and the exhausted wrack of their respiration. The Bloodguard alone appeared unworn by the long days of their exertion; they strode steadily up the slope as if it were just a variation of their restless devotion. But their companions were more death-prone. The warriors and Covenant began to stagger like cripples in the climb.

Finally Mhoram called a halt. Covenant dropped to sit with his back to the rock, facing the black-blown, measureless cavern. The sweat seemed to freeze on his face. The last of the food and drink was passed around, but in this buried place, both appeared to have lost their capacity to refresh-as if at last even sustenance were daunted by the darkness of the catacombs. Covenant ate and drank numbly. Then he shut his eyes to close out the empty blackness for a time. But he saw it whether his eyes were open or not.

Some time later-Covenant no longer measured duration-Lord Mhoram said in a stinging whisper, “I hear them.”

Korik's reply sounded as hollow as a sigh from a tomb. “Yes. They follow. They are a great many.”

Lurching as if stricken, the Questers began to climb again, pushing themselves beyond the limits of their strength. They felt weak with failure, as if they were moving only because Mhoram's blue flame pulled them forward, compelled them, beseeched, cajoled, urged, inspired, refused to accept anything from them except endurance and more endurance. Disregarding every exigency except the need for escape, they continued to climb.

Then the wind began to howl around them, and their way changed. The chasm abruptly narrowed; they found themselves on a thin, spiral stair carved into the wall of a vertical shaft. The width of the rude steps made them ascend in single file. And the wind went yelling up the shaft as if it fled the catacombs in stark terror. Covenant groaned when he realized that he would have to risk yet another perilous height, but the rush of the wind was so powerful that it seemed to make falling impossible. Cycling dizzily, he struggled up the stair.

The shaft went straight upward, and the wind yowled in pain; and the company climbed as if they were being dragged by the air. But as the shaft narrowed, the force of the wind increased; the air began to move past them too fast for breathing. As they gasped upward, a light-headed vertigo came over them. The shaft seemed to cant precariously from side to side. Covenant moved on his hands and knees.

Soon the whole company was crawling.

After an airless ache which extended interminably around him, Covenant lay stretched out on the stairs. He was not moving. Dimly, he heard voices trying to shout over the roar of the wind. But he was past listening. He felt that he had reached the verge of suffocation, and the only thing he wanted to do was weep. He could hardly remember what prevented him even now from releasing his misery.

Hands grabbed his shoulders, hauled him up onto flat stone. They dragged him ten or fifteen feet along the bottom of a thin crevice. The howl of the wind receded.

He heard Quaan give a choked, panting cheer. With an effort, he raised his head. He was sprawled in the crevice where it opened on one of the eastern faces of Mount Thunder. Across a flat, grey expanse far below him, the sun rose redly.

To his stunned ears, the cheering itself sounded like sobs. It spread as the warriors one by one climbed out past him into the dawn. Lithe had already leaped down a few feet from the crevice, and was on her knees kissing the earth. Far away, across the Sarangrave and the gleaming line of the Defiles Course and the Great Swamp, the sun stood up regally, wreathed in red splendour.

Covenant pushed himself into a sitting position and looked over at the Lords to see their victory.

They had no aspect of triumph. The High Lord sat crumpled like a sack of old bones, with the Staff of Law on his knees. His head was bowed, and he covered his face with both hands. Beside him, Mhoram stood still and dour, and his eyes were as bleak as a wilderness.

Covenant did not understand.

Then Bannor said, “We can defend here.”

Mhoram's reply was soft and violent. “How? Drool knows many ways. If we prevent him here, he will attack from below-above. He can bring thousands against us.”

“Then close this gap to delay them.”

Mhoram's voice became softer still. “The High Lord has no staff. I cannot forbid the gap alone-I have not the power. Do you believe that I am strong enough to bring down the walls of this crevice? No-not even if I were willing to damage the Earth in that way. We must escape. There-” He pointed down the mountainside with a hand that trembled.

Covenant looked downward. The crevice opened into the bottom of a ravine which ran straight down the side of Mount Thunder like a knife wound. The spine of this cut was jumbled and tossed with huge rocks-fallen boulders, pieces of the higher cliffs like dead fragments of the mountain. And its walls were sheer, unclimbable. The Questers would have to pick their way tortuously along the bottom of the cut for half a league. There the walls gave way, and the ravine dropped over a cliff. When the company reached the cliff, they would have to try to work around the mountainsides until they found another descent.

Still Covenant did not understand. He groaned at the difficulty of the ravine, but it was escape. He could feel sunlight on his face. Heaving himself to his feet, he muttered, “Let's get going.”

Mhoram gave him a look thick with suppressed pain. But he did not voice it. Instead, he spoke stiffly to Quaan and Korik. In a few moments, the Questers started down the ravine.

Their progress was deadly slow. In order to make their way, they had to climb from rock to rock, swing themselves over rough boulders, squeeze on hands and knees through narrow gaps between huge fists of stone. And they were weak. The strongest of the warriors needed help time and again from the Bloodguard.

Prothall had to be almost entirely carried. He clutched the Staff, and scrabbled frailly at the climbs. Whenever he jumped from a rock, he fell to his knees; soon the front of his robe was spattered with blood.

Covenant began to sense their danger. Their pace might be fatal. If Drool knew other ways onto the slope, his forces might reach the end of the ravine before the company did.

He was not alone in his perception. After their first relief, the warriors took on a haunted look. Soon they were trudging, clambering, struggling with their heads bowed and backs bent as if the weight of all they had ever known were tied around their necks. The sunlight did not allow them to be ignorant of their peril.

Like a prophecy, their fear was fulfilled before the company was halfway down the ravine. One of the Eoman gave a broken cry, pointed back up the mountain. There they saw a horde of ur-viles rushing out of the cleft from which they had come.

They tried to push faster down the littered spine of the cut. But the ur-viles poured after them like a black flood. The creatures seemed to spring over the rocks without danger of misstep, as if borne along by a rush of savagery. They gained on the company with sickening speed.

And the ur-viles were not alone. Near the end of the ravine, Cavewights suddenly appeared atop one wall. As soon as they spotted the Questers, they began throwing ropes over the edge, scaling down the wall.

The company was caught like a group of mites in the pincers of Drool's power.

They stopped where they were, paralyzed by dismay. For a moment, even Quaan's sense of responsibility for his Eoman failed; he stared blankly about him, and did not move. Covenant sagged against a boulder. He wanted to scream at the mountain that this was not fair. He had already survived so much, endured so much, lost so much. Where was his escape? Was this the cost of his bargain, his forbearance? It was too great. He was a leper, not made for such ordeals. His voice shook uncontrollably full of useless outrage. “No wonder he-let us have the Staff. So it would hurt worse now. He knew we wouldn't get away with it.”

But Mhoram shouted orders in a tone that cut through the dismay. He ran a short way down the ravine and climbed onto a wide, flat rock higher than the others near it. “There is space for us! Come!” he commanded. “We will make our end here!”

Slowly, the warriors shambled to the rock as if they were overburdened with defeat. Mhoram and the Bloodguard helped them up. High Lord Prothall came last, propped between two Bloodguard. He was muttering, “No. No.” But he did not resist Mhoram's orders.

When everyone was on the rock, Quaan's Eoman and the Bloodguard placed themselves around its edge. Lithe joined them, her cord taut in her hands, leaving Prothall and Mhoram and Covenant in the ring of the company's last defence.

Now the ur-viles had covered half the distance to the rock where the company stood. Behind them came hundreds of Cavewights, gushing out of the crevice and pouring down the ravine. And as many more worked upward from the place where they had entered the cut.

Surveying Drool's forces, Mhoram said softly, “Take heart, my friends. You have done well. Now let us make our end so bravely that even our enemies will remember it. Do not despair. There are many chances between the onset of a war and victory. Let us teach Lord Foul that he will never taste victory until the last friend of the Land is dead.”

But Prothall whispered, “No. No.” Facing upward toward the crest of Mount Thunder, he planted his feet and closed his eyes. With slow resolution, he raised the Staff of Law level with his heart and gripped it in both fists. “It must be possible,” he breathed. “By the Seven! It must.” His knuckles whitened on the intricate runed and secret surface of the Staff. “Melenkurion Skyweir, help me. I do not accept this end.” His brows slowly knotted over his shut, sunken eyes, and his head bowed until his beard touched his heart. From between his pale lips came a whispered, wordless song. But his voice rattled so huskily in his chest that his song sounded more like a dirge than an invocation.

Drool's forces poured down and surged up at the company inexorably. Mhoram watched them with a rictus of helplessness on his humane lips.

Suddenly, a desperate chance blazed in his eyes. He spun, gripped Covenant with his gaze, whispered, “There is a way! Prothall strives to call the Fire-Lions. He cannot succeed-the power of the Staff is closed, and we have not the knowledge to unlock it. But white gold can release that power. It can be done!”

Covenant recoiled as if Mhoram had betrayed him. No! he panted. I made a bargain-!

Then, with a sickening, vertiginous twist of insight, he caught a glimpse of Lord Foul's plan for him, glimpsed what the Despiser was doing to him. Here was the killing blow which had lain concealed behind all the machinations, all the subterfuge.

Hell and blood!

Here was the point of impact between his opposing madnesses. If he attempted to use the wild magic if his ring had power-if it had no power-He flinched at the reel and strike of dark visions-the company slain-the Staff destroyed thousands of creatures dead, all that blood on his head, his head.

“No,” he gasped thickly. “Don't ask me. I promised I wouldn't do any more killing. You don't know what I've done-to Atiaran-to- I made a bargain so I wouldn't have to do any more killing.”

The ur-viles and Cavewights were almost within bowshot now. The Eoman had arrows nocked and ready. Drool's hordes slowed, began to poise for the last spring of attack.

But Mhoram's eyes did not release Covenant. “There will be still more killing if you do not. Do you believe that Lord Foul will be content with our deaths? Never! He will slay and slay again until all life without exception is his to corrupt or destroy. All life, do you hear? Even these creatures that now serve him will not be spared.”

“No!” Covenant groaned again. “Don't you see? This is just what he wants. The Staff will be destroyed or Drool will be destroyed-or we'll-No matter what happens, he'll win. He'll be free. You're doing just what he wants.”

“Nevertheless!” Mhoram returned fervidly. “The dead are dead-only the living may hope to resist Despite.”

Hellfire! Covenant groped for answers like a man incapable of his own distress. But he found none. No bargain or compromise met his need. In his pain, he cried out wildly, protested, appealed, “Mhoram! It's suicide! You're asking me to go crazy!”

The peril in Mhoram's eyes did not waver. “No, Unbeliever. You need not lose your mind. There are other answers other songs. You can find them. Why should the Land be destroyed for your pain? Save or damn! Grasp the Staff!”

“Damnation!” Fumbling furiously for his ring, Covenant shouted, “Do it yourself!” He wrenched the band from his finger and tried to throw it at Mhoram. But he was shaking madly; his fingers slipped. The ring dropped to the stone, rolled away.

He scrambled after it. He did not seem to have enough digits to catch it; it skidded past Prothall's feet. He lurched toward it again-then missed his footing, fell, and smacked his forehead on the stone.

Distantly, he heard the thrum of bowstrings; the battle had begun. But he paid no attention. He felt that he had cracked his skull. When he raised his head, he found that his vision was wrong; he was seeing double.

The moss-stain chart of his robe smeared illegibly in his sight. Now he had lost whatever chance he had to read it, decipher the cryptic message of Morinmoss. He saw two of Mhoram as the Lord held up the ring. He saw two Prothalls above him, clutching the Staff and trying with the last strength of his life-force to compel its power to his will. Two Bannors turned away from the fight toward the Lords.

Then Mhoram stooped to Covenant. The Lord lashed out, caught his right wrist. The grip was so fierce that he felt his bones grinding together. It forced his hand open, and when his two fingers were spread and vulnerable, Mhoram shoved the ring onto his index digit. It stuck after the first knuckle. “I cannot usurp your place,” the double Lord grated. He stood and roughly pulled Covenant erect. Thrusting his double face at the Unbeliever, he hissed, “By the Seven! You fear power more than weakness.”

Yes! Covenant moaned at the pain in his wrist and head. Yes! I want to survive!

The snap of bowstrings came now as fast as the warriors could ready their arrows. But their supply of shafts was limited. And the ur-viles and Cavewights hung back, risking themselves only enough to draw the warriors' fire. Drool's forces were in no hurry. The ur-viles particularly looked ready to relish the slow slaughter of the company.

But Covenant had no awareness to spare for such things. He stared in a kind of agony at Mhoram. The Lord seemed to-have two mouths-lips stretched over multiplied teeth-and four eyes, all aflame with compulsions. Because he could think of no other appeal, he reached his free hand to his belt, took out Atiaran's knife, and extended it toward Mhoram. Through his teeth, he pleaded, “It would be better if you killed me.”

Slowly, Mhoram's grip eased. His lips softened; the fire of his eyes faded. His gaze seemed to turn inward, and he winced at what he beheld. When he spoke, his voice sounded like dust. “Ah, Covenant-forgive me. I forget myself. Foamfollower-Foamfollower understood this. I should have heard him more clearly. It is wrong to ask for more than you give freely. In this way, we come to resemble what we hate.” He released Covenant's wrist and stepped back. “My friend, this is not on your head. The burden is ours, and we bear it to the end. Forgive me.”

Covenant could not answer. He stood with his face twisted as if he were about to howl. His eyes ached at the duplicity of his vision. Mhoram's mercy affected him more than any argument or demand. He turned miserably toward Prothall. Could he not find somewhere the strength for that risk? Perhaps the path of escape lay that way-perhaps the horror of wild magic was the price he would have to pay for his freedom.

He did not want to be killed by ur-viles. But when he raised his arm, he could not tell which of those hands was his, which of those two Staffs was the real one.

Then, with a flat thrum, the last arrow was gone. The Cavewights gave a vast shout of malice and glee. At the command of the ur-viles, they began to approach. The warriors drew their swords, braced themselves for their useless end. The Bloodguard balanced on the balls of their feet.

Trembling, Covenant tried to reach toward the staff. But his head was spinning, and a whirl of darkness jumped dizzily at him. He could not overcome his fear; he was appalled at the revenge his leprosy would wreak on him for such audacity. His hand crossed half the distance and stopped, clutched in unfingered impotence at the empty air.

Ah! he cried lornly. Help me!

“We are the Bloodguard.” Bannor's voice was almost inaudible through the loud lust of the Cavewights. “We cannot permit this end.”

Firmly, he took Covenant's hand and placed it on the Staff of Law, midway between Prothall's straining knuckles.

Power seemed to explode in Covenant's chest. A silent concussion, a shock beyond hearing, struck the ravine like a convulsion of the mountain. The blast knocked the Questers from their feet, sent all the ur-viles and Cavewights sprawling among the boulders. Only the High Lord kept his feet. His head jerked up, and the Staff bucked in his hands.

For a moment, there was stillness in the ravine a quiet so intense that the blast seemed to have deafened all the combatants. And in that moment, the entire sky over Gravin Threndor turned black with impenetrable thunder.

Then came noise-one deep bolt of sound as if the very rock of the mountain cried out-followed by long waves of hot, hissing sputters. The clouds dropped until they covered the crest of Mount Thunder.

Great yellow fires began to burn on the shrouded peak.

For a time, the company and their attackers lay in the ravine as if they were afraid to move. Everyone stared up at the fires and the thunderheads.

Suddenly, the flames erupted. With a roar as if the sir itself were burning, fires started charging like great, hungry beasts down every face and side of the mountain.

Shrieking in fear, the Cavewights sprang up and ran. A few hurled themselves madly against the walls of the ravine. But most of them swept around the company's rock and fled downward, trying to outrun the Fire-Lions.

The ur-viles went the other way. In furious haste, they scrambled up the ravine toward the entrance to the catacombs.

But before they could reach safety, Drool appeared out of the cleft above them. The Cavewight was crawling, too crippled to stand. But in his fist he clutched a green stone which radiated intense wrong through the blackness of the clouds. His scream carried over the roar of the Lions:

“Crush! Crush!”

The ur-viles stopped, caught between fears.

While the creatures hesitated, the company started down the ravine. Prothall and Covenant were too exhausted to support themselves, so the Bloodguard bore them, throwing them from man to man over the boulders, dragging them along the tumbled floor of the ravine.

Ahead, the Cavewights began to reach the end of the cut. Some of them ran so blindly that they plunged over the cliff; others scattered in either direction along the edge, wailing for escape.

But behind the company, the ur-viles formed a wedge and again started downward. The Questers were barely able to keep their distance from the wedge.

The roar of the flaming air grew sharper, fiercer. Set free by the power of the Peak, boulders tumbled from the cliffs. The Fire-Lions moved like molten stone, sprang down the slopes as if spewed out of the heart of an inferno. Still far above the ravine, the consuming howl of their might seemed to double and treble itself with each downward lunge. A blast of scorched air blew ahead of them like a herald, trumpeting the progress of fire and volcanic hunger. Gravin Threndor shuddered to its roots.

The difficulty of the ravine eased as the company neared the lower end, and Covenant began to move for himself. Impelled by broken vision, overborne hearing, gaining rampage, he shook free of the Bloodguard. Moving stiff-kneed like a puppet, he jerked in a dogged, stumbling line for the cliff.

The other Questers swung to the south along the edge. But he went directly to the precipice. When he reached it, his legs barely had the strength to stop him. Tottering weakly, he looked down the drop. It was sheer for two thousand feet, and the cliff was at least half a league wide.

There was no escape. The Lions would get the company before they reached any possible descent beyond the cliff long before.

People yelled at him, warning him futilely; he could hardly hear them through the roaring air. He gave no heed. That kind of escape was not what he wanted. And he was not afraid of the fall: he could not see it clearly enough to be afraid.

He had something to do.

He paused for a moment, summoning his courage. Then he realized that one of the Bloodguard would probably try to save him. He wanted to accomplish his purpose before that could happen.

He needed an answer to death.

Pulling off his ring, he held it firmly in his half-fingerless hand, cocked his arm to throw the band over the cliff.

His eyes followed the ring as he drew back his arm, and he stopped suddenly, struck by a blow of shame. The metal was clean. His vision still saw two rings, but both were flat argent; the stain was gone from within them.

He spun from the cliff, searched up the ravine for Drool.

He heard Mhoram shout, “Bannor! It is his choice!” The Bloodguard was sprinting toward him. At Mhoram's command, Bannor pulled to a halt ten yards away, despite his Vow. The next instant, he rejected the command, leaped toward Covenant again.

Covenant could not focus his vision. He caught a glimpse of fiery Lions pouncing toward the crevice high up the ravine. But his sight was dominated by the ur-vile wedge. It was only three strides away from him. The loremaster had already raised its stave to strike.

Instinctively, Covenant tried to move. But he was too slow. He was still leaning when Bannor crashed into him, knocked him out of the way.

With a mad, exulting bark as if they had suddenly seen a vision, the ur-viles sprang forward as one and plunged over the cliff. Their cries as they fell sounded ferociously triumphant.

Bannor lifted Covenant to his feet. The Bloodguard urged him toward the rest of the company, but he broke free and stumbled a few steps up the slope, straining his eyes toward the crevice. “Drool! What happened to Drool?” His eyes failed him. He stopped, wavered uncertainly, raged, “I can't see!”

Mhoram hastened to him, and Covenant repeated his question, shouting it into the Lord's face.

Mhoram replied gently, “Drool is there, in the crevice. Power that he could not master destroys him. He no longer knows what he does. In a moment, the Fire-Lions will consume him.”

Covenant strove to master his voice by biting down on it. “No!” he hissed. “He's just another victim. Foul planned this all along:” Despite his clamped teeth, his voice sounded broken.

Comfortingly, Mhoram touched his shoulder. “Be at peace, Unbeliever. We have done all we can. You need not condemn yourself.”

Abruptly, Covenant found that his rage was gone collapsed into dust. He felt blasted and wrecked, and he sank to the ground as if his bones could no longer hold him. His eyes had a tattered look, like the sails of a ghost ship. Without caring what he did, he pushed his wedding band back onto his ring finger.

The rest of the company was moving toward him. They had given up their attempt at flight; together, they watched the progress of the Lions. The midnight clouds cast a gloom over the whole mountain, and through the dimness the pouncing fires blazed and coruscated like beasts of sun flame. They sprang down the walls into the ravine, and some of them bounded upward toward the crevice.

Lord Mhoram finally shook himself free of his entrancement. “Call your Ranyhyn,” he commanded Bannor. “The Bloodguard can save themselves. Take the Staff and the Second Ward. Call the Ranyhyn and escape.”

Bannor met Mhoram's gaze for a long moment, measuring the Lord's order. Then he refused stolidly. “One of us will go. To carry the Staff and Ward to Lord's Keep. The rest remain.”

“Why? We cannot escape. You must live-to serve the Lords who must carry on this war.”

“Perhaps.” Bannor shrugged slightly. “Who can say? High Lord Kevin ordered us away, and we obeyed. We will not do such a thing again.”

“But this death is useless!” cried Mhoram.

“Nevertheless.” The Bloodguard's tone was as blank as iron. Then he added, “But you can call Hynaril. Do so, Lord.”

“No,” Mhoram sighed with a tired smile of recognition. “I cannot. How could I leave so many to die?”

Covenant only half listened. He felt like a derelict, and he was picking among the wreckage of his emotions, in search of something worth salvaging. But part of him understood. He put the two fingers of his right hand between his lips and gave one short, piercing whistle.

All the company stared at him. Quaan seemed to think that the Unbeliever had lost his mind; Mhoram's eyes jumped at wild guesses. But Manethrall Lithe tossed her cord high in the air and crowed, “The Ranyhyn! Mane of the World! He calls them!”

“How?” protested Quaan. “He refused them.”

“They reared to him!” she returned with a nickering laugh. “They will come.”

Covenant had stopped listening altogether. Something was happening to him, and he lurched to his feet to meet it upright. The dimensions of his situation were changing. To his blurred gaze, the comrades of the company grew slowly harder and solider-took on the texture of native rock. And the mountain itself became increasingly adamantine. It seemed as immutable as the cornerstone of the world. He felt veils drop from his perception; he saw the unclouded fact of Gravin Threndor in all its unanswerable power. He paled beside it; his flesh grew thin, transient. Air as thick as smoke blew through him, chilling his bones. The throat of his soul contracted in silent pain. “What's happening to me?”

Around the cliff edge to the south, Ranyhyn came galloping. Like a blaze of hope, they raced the down rush of the Lions. At once, a hoarse cheer broke from the warriors. “We are saved!” Mhoram cried. “There is time enough!” With the rest of the company, he hurried forward to meet the swift approach of the Ranyhyn.

Covenant felt that he had been left alone. “What's happening to me?” he repeated dimly toward the hard mountain.

But Prothall was still at his side. Covenant heard the High Lord say in a kind old voice that seemed as loud as thunder, "Drool is dead. He was your summoner, and with his death the call ends. That is the way of such power.

“Farewell, Unbeliever! Be true! You have wrought greatly for us. The Ranyhyn will preserve us. And with the Staff of Law and the Second Ward, we will not be unable to defend against the Despiser's ill. Take heart. Despair and bitterness are not the only songs in the world.”

But Covenant wailed in mute grief. Everything around him-Prothall and the company and the Ranyhyn and the Fire-Lions and the mountain-became too solid for him. They overwhelmed his perceptions, passed beyond his senses into grey mist. He clutched about him and felt nothing. He could not see; the Land left the range of his eyes. It was too much for him, and he lost it.