Lord Foul's Bane

Six: Legend of Berek Halfhand

DUSK was deepening over the valley. Birds gathered to rest for the night in the trees of the foothills. They sang and called energetically to each other for a while, but their high din soon relaxed into a quiet, satisfied murmur. As Lena and Covenant passed behind the outer houses of the Stonedown, they could again hear the river contemplating itself in the distance. Lena was silent, as if she were containing some excitement or agitation, and Covenant was too immersed in the twilit sounds around him to say anything. The swelling night seemed full of soft communions-anodynes for the loneliness of the dark. So they came quietly toward Lena's home.

It was a rectangular building, larger than most in the Stonedown, but with the same polished sheen on the walls. A warm yellow light radiated from the windows. As Lena and Covenant approached, a large figure crossed one of the windows and moved toward a farther room.

At the corner of the house, Lena paused to take Covenant's hand and squeezed it before she led him up to the doorway.

The entry was covered with a heavy curtain. She held it aside and drew him into the house. There she halted. Looking around swiftly, he observed that the room they had entered went the depth of the house, but it had two curtained doors in either wall. In it, a stone table and benches with enough space to seat six or eight people occupied the middle of the floor. But the room was large enough so that the table did not dominate it.

Cut into the rock walls all around the room were shelves, and these were full of stoneware jars and utensils, some obviously for use in cooking and eating, others with functions which Covenant could not guess. Several rock stools stood against the walls. And the warm yellow light filled the chamber, glowing on the smooth surfaces and reflecting off rare colours and textures in the stone.

The light came from fires in several stone pots, one in each corner of the room and one in the centre of the table; but there was no flicker of flames-the light was as steady as its stone containers. And with the light came a soft smell as of newly broken earth.

After only a cursory glance around the chamber; Covenant's attention was drawn to the far end of the room. There on a slab of stone against the wall sat a huge granite pot, half as tall as a man. And over the pot, peering intently at its contents, stood a large man, a great pillar of a figure, as solid as a boulder. He had his back to Lena and Covenant, and did not seem to be aware of them. He wore a short brown tunic with brown trousers under it, but the leaf pattern woven into the fabric at his shoulders was identical to Lena's. Under the tunic, his massive muscles bunched and stretched as he rotated the pot. It looked prodigiously heavy, but Covenant half expected the man to lift it over his head to pour out its contents.

There was a shadow over the pot which the brightness of the room did not penetrate, and for some time the man stared into the darkness, studying it while he rotated the pot. Then he began to sing. His voice was too low for Covenant to make out the words, but as he listened he felt a kind of invocation in the sound, as if the contents of the pot were powerful. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the shadow began to pale. At first, Covenant thought that the light in the room had changed, but soon be saw a new illumination starting from the pot. The glow swelled and deepened, and at last shone out strongly, making the other lights seem thin.

With a final mutter over his work, the man stood upright and turned around. In the new brightness, he seemed even taller and broader than before, as if his limbs and shoulders and deep chest drew strength, stature, from the light; and his forehead was ruddy from the heat of the pot. Seeing Covenant, he started in surprise. An uneasy look came into his eyes, and his right hand touched his thick reddish beard. Then he extended the hand, palm forward, toward Covenant, and said to Lena, “Well, daughter, you bring a guest. But I remember that our hospitality is in your charge today.” The strange potency of a moment before was gone from his voice. He sounded like a man who did not speak much with people. But though he was treating his daughter sternly, he seemed essentially calm. “You know I promised more graveling today, and Atiaran your mother is helping deliver the new child of Odona Murrin-mate. The guest will be offended by our hospitality-with no meal ready to welcome the end of his day.” Yet while he reprimanded Lena, his eyes studied Covenant cautiously.

Lena bowed her head, trying, Covenant felt sure, to look ashamed for her father's benefit. But a moment later she hurried across the room and hugged the big man. He smiled softly at her upturned face. Then, turning toward Covenant, she announced, “Trell my father, I bring a stranger to the Stonedown. I found him on Kevin's Watch.” A lively gleam shone in her eyes, although she tried to keep her voice formal.

“So,” Trell responded. “A stranger-that I see. And wonder what business took him to that ill-blown place.”

“He fought with a grey cloud,” answered Lena.

Looking at this bluff, hale man, whose muscle knotted arm rested with such firm gentleness on Lena's shoulder, Covenant expected him to laugh at the absurd suggestion-a man fighting a cloud. Trell's presence felt imperturbable and earthy, like an assertion of common sense that reduced the nightmare of Foul to its proper unreality. So Covenant was put off his balance by hearing Trell ask with perfect seriousness, “Which was the victor?”

The question forced Covenant to find a new footing for himself. He was not prepared to deal with the memory of Lord Foul-but at the same time he felt obscurely sure that he could not lie to Trell. He found that his throat had gone dry, and he answered awkwardly, “I lived through it.”

Trell said nothing for a moment, but in the silence Covenant felt that his answer had increased the big man's uneasiness. Trell's eyes shifted away, then came back as he said, “I see. And what is your name, stranger?”

Promptly, Lena smiled at Covenant and answered for him, “Thomas Covenant. Covenant of Kevin's Watch.”

“What, girl?” asked Trell. “Are you a prophet, that you speak for someone higher than you?” Then to Covenant he said, “Well, Thomas Covenant of Kevin's Watch-do you have other names?”

Covenant was about to respond negatively when he caught an eager interest in the question from Lena's eyes. He paused. In a leap of insight, he realized that he was as exciting to her as if he had in fact been Berek Halfhand-that to her yearning toward mysteries and powers, all-knowing Lords and battles in the clouds, his strangeness and his unexplained appearance on the Watch made him seem like a personification of great events out of a heroic past. The message of her gaze was suddenly plain; in the suspense of her curiosity she was hanging from the hope that he would reveal himself to her, give her some glimpse of his high calling to appease her for her youth and ignorance.

The idea filled him with strange reverberations. He was not used to such flattery; it gave him an unfamiliar sense of possibility. Quickly, he searched for some high-sounding title to give himself, some name by which he could please Lena without falsifying himself to Trell. Then he had an inspiration. “Thomas Covenant,” he said as if he were rising to a challenge, “the Unbeliever.”

Immediately, he felt that with that name he had committed himself to more than he could measure at present. The act made him feel pretentious, but Lena rewarded him with a beaming glance, and Trell accepted the statement gravely. “Well, Thomas Covenant,” he replied, “you are welcome to Mithil Stonedown. Please accept the hospitality of this home. I must go now to take my graveling as I promised. It may be that Atiaran my wife will return soon. And if you prod her, Lena may remember to offer you refreshment while I am gone.”

While he spoke, Trell turned back to his stone pot. He wrapped his arms about it, lifted it from its base. With red-gold flames reflecting a dance in his hair and beard, he carried the pot toward the doorway. Lena hurried ahead of him to hold open the curtain, and in a moment Trell was gone, leaving Covenant with one glimpse of the contents of the pot. It was full of small, round stones like fine gravel, and they seemed to be on fire.

“Damnation,” Covenant whispered. “How heavy is that thing?”

“Three men cannot lift the pot alone,” replied Lena proudly. “But when the graveling burns, my father may lift it easily. He is a Gravelingas of the rhadhamaerl, deep with the lore of stone.”

Covenant stared after him for a moment, appalled by Trell's strength.

Then Lena said, “Now, I must not fail to offer you refreshment. Will you wash or bathe? Are you thirsty? We have good springwine.”

Her voice brought back the scintillation of Covenant's nerves. His instinctive distrust of Trell's might dissipated under the realization that he had a power of his own. This world accepted him; it accorded him importance. People like Trell and Lena were prepared to take him as seriously as he wanted. All he had to do was keep moving, follow the path of his dream to Revelstone-whatever that was. He felt giddy at the prospect. On the impetus of the moment, he determined to participate in his own importance, enjoy it while it lasted.

To cover his rush of new emotions, he told Lena that he would like to wash. She took him past a curtain into another room, where water poured continuously from a spout in the wall. A sliding stone valve sent the water into either a washbasin or a large tub, both formed of stone. Lena showed him some fine sand to use as soap, then left him. The water was cold, but he plunged his hands and head into it with something approaching enthusiasm.

When he was done, he looked around for a towel, but did not see one. Experimentally, he eased a hand over the glowing pot that lit the room. The warm yellow light dried his fingers rapidly, so he leaned over the pot, rubbing the water from his face and neck, and soon even his hair was dry. By force of habit, he went through his VSE, examining the nearly invisible marks where his hands had been cut. Then he pushed the curtain out of his way and re-entered the central chamber.

He found that another woman had joined Lena. As he returned, he heard Lena say, “He says he knows nothing of us.” Then the other woman looked at him, and he guessed immediately that she was Atiaran. The leaf pattern at the shoulders of her long brown robe seemed to be a kind of family emblem; he did not need such hints to see the long familiarity in the way the older woman touched Lena's shoulder, or the similarities in their posture. But where Lena was fresh and slim of line, full of unbroken newness, Atiaran appeared complex, almost self-contradictory. Her soft surface, her full figure, she carried as if it were a hindrance to the hard strength of experience within her, as if she lived with her body on the basis of an old and difficult truce. And her face bore the signs of that truce; her forehead seemed prematurely lined, and her deep spacious eyes appeared to open inward on a weary battleground of doubts and uneasy reconciliations. Looking at her over the stone table, Covenant received a double impression of a frowning concern-the result of knowing and fearing more than other people realized-and an absent beauty that would rekindle her face if only she would smile.

After a brief hesitation, the older woman touched her heart and raised her hand toward Covenant as Trell had done. “Hail, guest, and welcome. I am Atiaran Trell-mate. I have spoken with Trell, and with Lena my daughter-you need no introduction to me, Thomas Covenant. Be comfortable in our home.”

Remembering his manners-and his new determination-Covenant responded, “I'm honoured.”

Atiaran bowed slightly. “Accepting that which is offered honours the giver. And courtesy is always welcome.” Then she seemed to hesitate again, uncertain of how to proceed. Covenant watched the return of old conflicts to her eyes, thinking that gaze would have an extraordinary power if it were not-so inward. But she reached her decision soon, and said, “It is not the custom of our people to worry a guest with hard questions before eating. But the food is not ready ”she glanced at Lena-“ and you are strange to me, Thomas Covenant, strange and disquieting. I would talk with you if I may, while Lena prepares what food we have. You seem to bear a need that should not wait.”

Covenant shrugged noncommittally. He felt a twinge of anxiety at the thought of her questions, and braced himself to try to answer them without losing his new balance.

In the pause, Lena began moving around the room. She went to the shelves to get plates and bowls for the table, and prepared some dishes on a slab of stone heated from underneath by a tray of graveling. She turned her eyes toward Covenant often as she moved, but he did not always notice. Atiaran compelled his attention.

At first, she murmured uncertainly, “I hardly know where to begin. It has been so long, and I learned so little of what the Lords know. But what I have must be enough. No one here can take my place.” She straightened her shoulders. “May I see your hands?”

Remembering Lena's initial reaction to him, Covenant held up his right hand.

Atiaran moved around the table until she was close enough to touch him, but did not. Instead, she searched his face. "Halfhand. It is as Trell said. And some say that Berek Earthfriend, Heartthew and Lord Fatherer, will return to the Land when there is need. Do you know these things?"

Covenant answered gruffly, “No.”

Still looking into his face, Atiaran said, “Your other hand?”

Puzzled, he raised his left. She dropped her eyes to it.

When she saw it, she gasped, and bit her lip and stepped back. For an instant, she seemed inexplicably terrified. But she mastered herself, and asked with only a low tremble in her voice, “What metal is that ring?”

“What? This?” Her reaction startled Covenant, and in his surprise he gaped at a complicated memory of Joan saying, With this ring I thee wed, and the old ochre-robed beggar replying, Be true, be true. Darkness threatened him. He heard himself answer as if he were someone else, someone who had nothing to do with leprosy and divorce, “It's white gold.”

Atiaran groaned, clamped her hands over her temples as if she were in pain. But again she brought herself under control, and a bleak courage came into her eyes. “I alone,” she said, “I alone in Mithil Stonedown know the meaning of this. Even Trell has not this knowledge. And I know too little. Answer, Thomas Covenant-is it true?”

I should've thrown it away, he muttered bitterly. A leper's got no right to be sentimental.

But Atiaran's intensity drew his attention toward her again. She gave him the impression that she knew more about what was happening to him than he did that he was moving into a world which, in some dim, ominous way, had been made ready for him. His old anger mounted. “Of course it's true,” he snapped. “What's the matter with you? It's only a ring.”

“It is white gold.” Atiaran's reply sounded as forlorn as if she had just suffered a bereavement.

“So what?” He could not understand what distressed the woman. “It doesn't mean a thing. Joan-” Joan had preferred it to yellow gold. But that had not prevented her from divorcing him.

“It is white gold,” Atiaran repeated. "The Lords sing an ancient lore-song concerning the bearer of white gold. I remember only a part of it, thus:

And he who wields white wild magic gold

is a paradox—

for he is everything and nothing,

hero and fool,

potent, helpless—

and with the one word of truth or treachery,

he will save or damn the Earth

because he is mad and sane,

cold and passionate,

lost and found.

Do you know the song, Covenant? There is no white gold in the Land. Gold has never been found in the Earth, though it is said that Berek knew of it, and made the songs. You come from another place. What terrible purpose brings you here?"

Covenant felt her searching him with her eyes for some flaw, some falsehood which would give the lie to her fear. He stiffened. You have might, the Despiser had said, wild magic-You will never know what it is. The idea that his wedding band was some kind of talisman nauseated him like the smell of attar. He had a savage desire to shout. None of this is happening! But he only knew of one workable response: don't think about it, follow the path, survive. He met Atiaran on her own ground. “All purposes are terrible. I have a message for the Council of Lords.”

“What message?” she demanded.

After only an instant's hesitation, he grated, “The Grey Slayer has come back.”

When she heard Covenant pronounce that name, Lena dropped the stoneware bowl she was carrying, and fled into her mother's arms.

Covenant stood glowering at the shattered bowl. The liquid it had contained gleamed on the smooth stone floor. Then he heard Atiaran pant in horror, “How do you know this?” He looked back at her, and saw the two women clinging together like children threatened by the demon of their worst dreams. Leper outcast unclean! he thought sourly. But as he watched, Atiaran seemed to grow solider. Her jaw squared, her broad glance hardened. For all her fear, she was a strong woman comforting her child-and bracing herself to meet her danger. Again she asked, “How do you know?”

She made him feel defensive, and he replied, “I met him on Kevin's Watch.”

“Ah, alas!” she cried, hugging Lena. “Alas for the young in this world! The doom of the Land is upon them. Generations will die in agony, and there will be war and terror and pain for those who live! Alas, Lena my daughter. You were born into an evil time, and there will be no peace or comfort for you when the battle comes. Ah, Lena, Lena.”

Her grief touched an undefended spot in Covenant, and his throat thickened. Her voice filled his own image of the Land's Desolation with a threnody he had not heard before. For the first time, he sensed that the Land held something precious which was in danger of being lost.

This combination of sympathy and anger tightened his nerves still further. He vibrated to a sharper pitch, trembled. When he looked at Lena, he saw that a new awe of him had already risen above her panic. The unconscious offer in her eyes burned more disturbingly than ever.

He held himself still until Atiaran and Lena slowly released each other. Then he asked, “What do you know about all this? About what's happening to me?”

Before Atiaran could reply, a voice called from outside the house, “Hail! Atiaran Tiaran-daughter. Trell Gravelingas tells us that your work is done for this day. Come and sing to the Stonedown!”

For a moment, Atiaran stood still, shrinking back into herself. Then she sighed, “Ah, the work of my life has just begun,” and turned to the door. Holding aside the curtain, she said into the night, “We have not yet eaten. I will come later. But after the gathering I must speak with the Circle of elders.”

“They will be told,” the voice answered.

“Good,” said Atiaran. But instead of returning to Covenant, she remained in the doorway, staring into the darkness for a while. When she closed the curtain at last and faced Covenant, her eyes were moist, and they held a look that he at first thought was defeat. But then he realized that she was only remembering defeat. “No, Thomas Covenant,” she said sadly, "I know nothing of your fate. Perhaps if I had remained at the Loresraat longer-if I had had the strength. But I passed my limit there, and came home. I know a part of the old Lore that Mithil Stonedown does not guess, but it is too little. All that I can remember for you are hints of a wild magic which destroys peace-

wild magic graven in every rock,

contained for white gold to unleash or control

but the meaning of such lines, or the courses of these times, I do not know. That is a double reason to take you to the Council.“ Then she looked squarely into his face, and added, ”I tell you openly, Thomas Covenant-if you have come to betray the Land, only the Lords may hope to stop you."

Betray? This was another new thought. An instant passed before he realized what Atiaran was suggesting. But before he could protest, Lena put in for him, “Mother! He fought a grey cloud on Kevin's Watch. I saw it. How can you doubt him?” Her defence controlled his belligerent reaction. Without intending to, she had put him on false ground. He had not gone so far as to fight Lord Foul.

Trell's return stopped any reply Atiaran might have made. The big man stood in the doorway for a moment, looking between Atiaran and Lena and Covenant. Abruptly, he said, “So. We are come on hard times.”

“Yes, Trell my husband,” murmured Atiaran. “Hard times.”

Then his eyes caught the shards of stoneware on the floor. “Hard times, indeed,” he chided gently, “when stoneware is broken, and the pieces left to powder underfoot.”

This time, Lena was genuinely ashamed. “I am sorry, Father,” she said. “I was afraid.”

“No matter.” Trell went to her and placed his big hands, light with affection, on her shoulders. “Some wounds may be healed. I feel strong today.”

At this, Atiaran gazed gratefully at Trell as if he had just undertaken some heroic task.

To Covenant's incomprehension, she said, “Be seated, guest. Food will be ready soon. Come, Lena.” The two of them began to bustle around the cooking stone.

Covenant watched as Trell started to pick up the pieces of the broken pot. The Gravelingas' voice rumbled softly, singing an ancient subterranean song. Tenderly, he carried the shards to the table and set them down near the lamp. Then he seated himself. Covenant sat beside him, wondering what was about to happen.

Singing his cavernous song between clenched teeth, Trell began to fit the shards together as if the pot were a puzzle. Piece after piece he set in place, and each piece held where he left it without any adhesive Covenant could see. Trell moved painstakingly, his touch delicate on every fragment, but the pot seemed to grow quickly in his hands, and the pieces fit together perfectly, leaving only a network of fine black lines to mark the breaks. Soon all the shards were in place.

Then his deep tone took on a new cadence. He began to stroke the stoneware with his fingers, and everywhere his touch passed, the black fracture marks vanished as if they had been erased. Slowly, he covered every inch of the pot with his caress. When he had completed the outside, he stroked the inner surface. And finally he lifted the pot, spread his touch over its base. Holding the pot between the fingers of both hands, he rotated it carefully, making sure he had missed nothing. Then he stopped singing, set the pot down gently, took his hands away. It was as complete and solid as if it had never been dropped.

Covenant pulled his awed stare away from the pot to Trell's face. The Gravelingas looked haggard with strain, and his taut cheeks were streaked with tears. “Mending is harder than breaking,” he mumbled. “I could not do this every day.” Wearily, he folded his arms on the table and cradled his head in them.

Atiaran stood behind her husband, massaging the heavy muscles of his shoulders and neck, and her eyes were full of pride and love. Something in her expression made Covenant feel that he came from a very poor world, where no one knew or cared about healing stoneware pots. He tried to tell himself that he was dreaming, but he did not want to listen.

After a silent pause full of respect for Trell's deed, Lena started to set the table. Soon Atiaran brought bowls of food from the cooking stone. When everything was ready, Trell lifted his head, climbed tiredly to his feet. With Atiaran and Lena, he stood beside the table. Atiaran said to Covenant, “It is the custom of our people to stand before eating, as a sign of our respect for the Earth, from which life and food and power come.” Covenant stood as well, feeling awkward and out of place. Trell and Atiaran and Lena closed their eyes, bowed their heads for a moment. Then they sat down. When Covenant had followed them to the bench, they began to pass around the food.

It was a bountiful meal: there was cold salt beef covered with a steaming gravy, wild rice, dried apples, brown bread, and cheese; and Covenant was given a tall mug of a drink which Lena called springwine. This beverage was as clear and light as water, slightly effervescent, and it smelled dimly of aliantha; but it tasted like a fine beer which had been cured of all bitterness. Covenant had downed a fair amount of it before he realized that it added a still keener vibration to his already thrumming nerves. He could feel himself tightening. He was too full of unusual pressures. Soon he was impatient for the end of the meal, impatient to leave the house and expand in the night air.

But Lena's family ate slowly, and a pall hung over them. They dined as deliberately as if this meal marked the end of all their happiness together. In the silence, Covenant realized that this was a result of his presence. It made him uneasy.

To ease himself, he tried to increase what he knew about his situation. “I have a question,” he said stiffly. With a gesture, he took in the whole Stonedown. “No wood. There's plenty of trees all over this valley, but I don't see you using any wood. Are the trees sacred or something?”

After a moment, Atiaran replied, “Sacred? I know that word, but its meaning is obscure to me. There is Power in the Earth, in trees and rivers and soil and stone, and we respect it for the life it gives. So we have sworn the Oath of Peace. Is that what you ask? We do not use wood because the wood-lore, the lillianrill, is lost to us, and we have not sought to regain it. In the exile of our people, when Desolation was upon the Land, many precious things were lost. Our people clung to the rhadhamaerl lore in the Southron Range and the Wastes, and it enabled us to endure. The wood-lore seemed not to help us, and it was forgotten. Now that we have returned to the Land, the stone-lore suffices for us. But others have kept the lillianrill. I have seen Soaring Woodhelven, in the hills far north and east of us, and it is a fair place-their people understand wood, and flourish. There is some trade between Stonedown and Woodhelven, but wood and stone are not traded.”

When she stopped, Covenant sensed a difference in the new silence. A moment passed before he was sure that he could hear a distant rumour of voices. Shortly, Atiaran confirmed this by saying to Trell, “Ah, the gathering. I promised to sing tonight.”

She and Trell stood together, and he said, “So. And then you will speak with the Circle of elders. Some preparations for tomorrow I will make. “See” he pointed at the table-” it will be a fine day-there is no shadow on the heart of the stone."

Almost in spite of himself, Covenant looked where Trell pointed. But he could see nothing.

Noticing his blank look, Atiaran said kindly, “Do not be surprised, Thomas Covenant. No one but a rhadhamaerl can foretell weather in such stones as this. Now come with me, if you will, and I will sing the legend of Berek Halfhand.” As she spoke, she took the pot of graveling from the table to carry with her. “Lena, will you clean the stoneware?”

Covenant, got to his feet. Glancing at Lena, he saw her face twisted with unhappy obedience; she clearly wanted to go with them. But Trell also saw her expression and said, “Accompany our guest, Lena my daughter. I will not be too busy to care for the stoneware.”

Pleasure transformed her instantly, and she leaped up to throw her arms around her father's neck. He returned her embrace for a moment, then lowered her to the floor. She straightened her shift, trying to look suddenly demure, and moved to her mother's side.

Atiaran said, “Trell, you will teach this girl to think she is a queen.” But she took Lena's hand to show that she was not angry, and together they went past the curtain. Covenant followed promptly, went out of the house into the starry night with a sense of release. There was more room for him to explore himself under the open sky.

He needed exploration. He could not understand, rationalize, his mounting excitement. The springwine he had consumed seemed to provide a focus for his energies; it capered in his veins like a raving satyr. He felt inexplicably brutalized by inspiration, as if he were the victim rather than the source of his dream. White gold! he sputtered at the darkness between the houses. Wild magic! Do they think I'm crazy?

Perhaps he was crazy. Perhaps he was at this moment wandering in dementia, tormenting himself with false griefs and demands, the impositions of an illusion. Such things had happened to lepers.

I'm not! he shouted, almost cried out aloud. I know the difference-I know I'm dreaming.

His fingers twitched with violence, but he drew cool air deep into his lungs, put everything behind him. He knew how to survive a dream. Madness was the only danger.

As they walked together between the houses, Lena's smooth arm brushed his. His skin felt lambent at the touch.

The murmur of people grew quickly louder. Soon Lena, Atiaran, and Covenant reached the circle, moved into the gathering of the Stonedown.

It was lit by dozens of hand-held graveling pots, and in the illumination Covenant could see clearly. Men, women, and children clustered the rim of the circle. Covenant guessed that virtually the entire Stonedown had come to hear Atiaran sing. Most of the people were shorter than he was-and considerably shorter than Trell-and they had dark hair, brown or black, again unlike Trell. But they were a stocky, broad-shouldered breed, and even the women and children gave an impression of physical strength; centuries of stone-work had shaped them to suit their labour. Covenant felt the same dim fear of them that he had of Trell. They seemed too strong, and he had nothing but his strangeness to protect him if they turned against him.

They were busy talking to each other, apparently waiting for Atiaran, and they gave no sign of noticing Covenant. Reluctant to call attention to himself, he hung back at the outer edges of the gathering. Lena stopped with him. Atiaran gave her the graveling pot, then moved away through the crowd toward the centre of the circle.

After he had scanned the assembly, Covenant turned his attention to Lena. She stood by his right side, the top of her head just an inch or two higher than his shoulder, and she held the graveling pot at her waist with both hands, so that the light emphasized her breasts. She was clearly unconscious of the effect, but he felt it intensely, and his palms itched again with an eager and fearful desire to touch her.

As if she felt his thoughts, she looked up at him with a solemn softness in her face that made his heart lurch as if it were too big for his constraining ribs. Awkwardly, he took his eyes away, stared around the circle without seeing anything. When he glanced back at her, she seemed to be doing just what he had done-pretending to look elsewhere. He tightened his jaw and forced himself to wait for something to happen.

Soon the gathering became still. In the centre of the open circle, Atiaran stood up on a low stone platform. She bowed her head to the gathering, and the people responded by silently raising their graveling pots. The lights seemed to focus around her like a penumbra.

When the pots were lowered, and a last ripple of shuffling had passed through the gathering, Atiaran began: “I feel I am an old woman this night-my memory seems clouded, and I do not remember all the song I would like to sing. But what I remember I will sing, and I will tell you the story, as I have told it before, so that you may share what lore I have.” At this, low laughter ran through the gathering-a humorous tribute to Atiaran's superior knowledge. She remained silent, her head bowed to hide the fear that knowledge had brought her, until the people were quiet again. Then she raised her eyes and said, “I will sing the legend of Berek Halfhand.”

After a last momentary pause, she placed her song into the welcoming silence like a rough and rare jewel.

In war men pass like shadows that stain the grass,

Leaving their lives upon the green:

While Earth bewails the crimson sheen,

Men's dreams and stars and whispers all helpless pass.

In one red shadow by woe and wicked cast,

In one red pool about his feet,

Derek mows the vile like ripe wheat,

Though of all of Beauty's guarders he is last:

Last to pass into the shadow of defeat,

And last to feel the full despair,

And leave his weapons lying there—

Take his half unhanded hand from battle seat.

Across the plains of the Land they all swept—

Treachers lust at faltering stride

As Berek fled before the tide,

Till on Mount Thunder's rock-mantled side he wept.

Berek! Earthfriend! — Help and weal,

Battle-aid against the foe!

Earth gives and answers Power's peal,

Ringing, Earthfriend! Help and heal!

Clean the Land from bloody death and woe!

The song made Covenant quiver, as if it concealed a spectre which he should have been able to recognize. But Atiaran's voice enthralled him. No instruments aided her singing, but before she had finished her first line, he knew that she did not need them. The clean thread of her melody was tapestried with unexpected resonances, implied harmonies, echoes of silent voices, so that on every rising motif she seemed about to expand into three or four singers, throats separate and unanimous in the song.

It began in a minor mode that made the gold-hued, star-gemmed night throb like a dirge; and through it blew a black wind of loss, in which things cherished and consecrated throughout the Stonedown seemed to flicker and go out. As he listened, Covenant felt that the entire gathering wept with the song, cried out as one in silent woe under the wide power of the singer.

But grief did not remain long in that voice. After a pause that opened in the night like a revelation, Atiaran broke into her brave refrain- “Berek! Earthfriend!”- and the change carried her high in a major modulation that would have been too wrenching for any voice less rampant with suggestions, less thickly woven, than hers. The emotion of the gathering continued, but it was reborn in an instant from grief to joy and gratitude. And as Atiaran's long, last high note sprang from her throat like a salute to the mountains and the stars, the people held up their graveling pots and gave a resounding shout:

“Berek! Earthfriend! Hail!”

Then, slowly, they lowered their lights and began to press forward, moving closer to Atiaran to hear her story. The common impulse was so simple and strong that Covenant took a few steps as well before he could recollect himself. Abruptly, he looked about him-focused his eyes on the faint glimmering stars, smelled the pervasive, aroma of the graveling. The unanimous reaction of the Stonedown frightened him; he could not afford to lose himself in it. He wanted to turn away, but he needed to hear Berek's story, so he stayed where he was.

As soon as the people had settled themselves, Atiaran began.

“It came to pass that there was a great war in the eldest days, in the age that marks the beginning of the memory of mankind-before the Old Lords were born, before the Giants came across the Sunbirth Sea to make the alliance of Rockbrothers-a time before the Oath of Peace, before the Desolation and High Lord Kevin's last battle. It was a time when the Viles who sired the Demondim were a high and lofty race, and the Cavewights smithed and smelted beautiful metals to trade in open friendship with all the people of the Land. In that time, the Land was one great nation, and over it ruled a King and Queen. They were a hale pair, rich with love and honour, and for many years they held their sway in unison and peace.

“But after a time a shadow came over the heart of the King. He tasted the power of life and death over those who served him, and learned to desire it. Soon mastery became a lust with him, as necessary as food. His nights were spent in dark quests for more power, and by day he exercised that power, becoming hungrier and more cruel as the lust overcame him.

“But the Queen looked on her husband and was dismayed. She desired only that the health and fealty of the past years should return. But no appeal, no suasion or power of hers, could break the grip of cruelty that degraded the King. And at last, when she saw that the good of the Land would surely die if her husband were not halted, she broke with him, opposed his might with hers.

“Then there was war in the Land. Many who had felt the cut of the King's lash stood with the Queen. And many who hated murder and loved life joined her also. The chiefest of these was Berek-strongest and wisest of the Queen's champions. But the fear of the King was upon the Land, and whole cities rose up to fight for him, killing to protect their own slavery.

“Battle was joined across the Land, and for a time it seemed that the Queen would prevail. Her heroes were mighty of hand, and none were mightier than Berek, who was said to be a match for any King. But as the battle raged, a shadow, a grey cloud from the east, fell over the hosts. The Queen's defenders were stricken at heart, and their strength left them. But her enemies found a power of madness in the shadow. They forgot their humanity-they chopped and trampled and clawed and bit and maimed and defiled until their grey onslaught whelmed the heroes, and Berek's comrades broke one by one into despair and death. So the battle went until Berek was the last hater of the shadow left alive.

“But he fought on, heedless of his fate and the number of his foes, and souls fell dead under his sword like autumn leaves in a gale. At last, the King himself, filled with the fear and madness of the shadow, challenged Berek, and they fought. Berek stroked mightily, but the shadow turned his blade. So the contest was balanced until one blow of the King's axe cleft Berek's hand. Then Berek's sword fell to the ground, and he looked about him-looked and saw the shadow, and all his brave comrades dead. He cried a great cry of despair, and, turning, fled the battleground.

“Thus he ran, hunted by death, and the memory of the shadow was upon him. For three days he ran, never stopping, never resting-and for three days the King's host came behind him like a murderous beast, panting for blood. At the last of his strength and the extremity of his despair, he came to Mount Thunder. Climbing the rock-strewn slope, he threw himself down atop a great boulder and wept, saying, “Alas for the Earth. We are overthrown, and have no friend to redeem us. Beauty shall pass utterly from the Land.”

“But the rock on which he lay replied, “There is a Friend for a heart with the wisdom to see it.”

“The stones are not my friends, cried Berek. See, my enemies ride the Land, and no convulsion tears the earth from under their befouling feet.”

“That may be,” said the rock. `They are alive as much as you, and need the ground to stand upon. Yet there is a Friend for you in the Earth, if you will pledge your soul to its healing.'

"Then Berek stood upon the rock, and beheld his enemies close upon him. He took the pledge, sealing it with the blood of his riven hand. The Earth replied with thunder; from the heights of the mountain came great stone Fire-Lions, devouring everything in their path. The King and all his host were laid waste, and Berek alone stood above the rampage on his boulder like a tall ship in the sea.

“When the rampage had passed, Berek did homage to the Lions of Mount Thunder, promising respect and communion and service for the Earth from himself and all the generations which followed him upon the Land. Wielding the first Earthpower, he made the Staff of Law from the wood of the One Tree, and with it began the healing of the Land. In the fullness of time, Berek Halfhand was given the name Heartthew, and he became the Lord-Fatherer, the first of the Old Lords. Those who followed his path flourished in the Land for two thousand years.”

For a long moment, there was silence over the gathering when Atiaran finished. Then together, as if their pulses moved to a single beat, the Stonedownors began to surge forward, stretching out their hands to touch her in appreciation. She spread her arms to hug as many of her friends as she could, and those who could not reach her embraced each other, sharing the oneness of their communal response.