The Power That Preserves

Fourteen: Only Those Who Hate

COVENANT first awoke after a night and a day. But the stupor of essential sleep was still on him, and he only roused himself at the behest of a nagging thirst. When he sat up in the bed of leaves, he found a water jug on a shelf by his head. He drank deeply, then saw that a bowl of fruit and bread also occupied the shelf. He ate, drank again, and went back to sleep as soon as he had stretched himself out among the warm dry leaves once more.

The next time, he came languorously out of slumber amid the old gentle fragrance of the bed. When he opened his eyes, he discovered that he was looking up through a dim gloom of daylight at the root-woven roof of a cave. He turned his head, looked around the earthen walls until he located the moss-hung entrance which admitted so little light. He did not know where he was, or how he had come here, or how long he had slept. But his ignorance caused him no distress. He had recovered from fear. On the strength of unknown things which lay hidden behind the veil of his repose, he felt sure that he had no need to fear.

That feeling was the only emotion in him. He was calm, steady, and hollow-empty and therefore undisturbed-as if the same cleansing or apotheosis which had quenched his terror had also drained every other passion from him. For a time, he could not even remember what those passions had been; between him and his past lay nothing but sleep and an annealed gulf of extravagant fear.

Then he caught the first faint scent of death in the air. It was not urgent, and he did not react to it immediately. While he took its measure, made sure of it, he stretched his sleep-stiff muscles, feeling the flex of their revitalization. Whatever had brought him to this place had happened so long ago that even his body appeared to have forgotten it. Yet his recovery gave him little satisfaction. He accepted it with complete and empty confidence, for reasons that were hidden from him.

When he was ready, he swung his feet off the bed and sat up. At once, he saw the old brown woman lying crumpled on the floor. She was dead with an outcry still rigid on her lips and a blasted look in the staring loam of her eyes. In the dim light, she seemed like a wracked mound of earth. He did not know who she was-he gazed at her with an effort of recollection and could not remember ever having seen her before-but she gave him the vague impression that she, too, had died for him.

That’s enough, he said dimly to himself. Other memories began to float to the surface like the dead seaweed and wreckage of his life. This must not happen again.

He looked down at the unfamiliar white robe for a moment, then pushed the cloth aside so that he could see his ankle.

It was broken, he thought in hollow surprise. He could remember breaking it; he could remember wrestling with Pietten, falling-he could remember using Pietten’s spear to help him walk until the fracture froze. Yet now it showed no sign of any break. He tested it against the floor, half expecting its wholeness to vanish like an illusion. He stood up, hopped from foot to foot, sat down again. Muttering dully to himself, By hell, by hell, he gave himself his first VSE in many days.

He found that he was more healed than he would have believed possible. The damage which he had done to his feet was almost completely gone. His gaunt hands flexed easily-though they had lost flesh, and his ring hung loosely on his wedding finger. Except for a faint numbness at their tips, his ears and nose had recovered from frostbite. His very bones were full of deep, sustaining warmth.

But other things had not changed. His cheeks felt as stiff as ever. Along his forehead was the lump of a badly healed scar; it was tender to the touch, as if beneath the surface it festered against his skull. And his disease still gnawed its way remorselessly up the nerves of his hands and feet. His fingers were numb to the palms, and only the tops of his feet and the backs of his heels remained sensitive. So the fundamental condition of his existence remained intact. The law of his leprosy was graven within him, carved with the cold chisel of death as if he were made of dolomite or marble rather than bone and blood and humanity.

For that reason he remained unmoved in the hollow centre of his healing. He was a leper and had no business exposing himself to the risks of passion.

Now when he looked back at the dead woman, he remembered what he had been doing before the winter had reft him of himself; he had been carrying a purpose of destruction and hate eastward, toward Foul’s Creche. That purpose now wore the aspect of madness. He had been mad to throw himself against the winter alone, just as he had been mad to believe that he could ever challenge the Despiser. The path of his past appeared strewn with corpses, the victims of the process which had brought him to that purpose-the process of manipulation by which Lord Foul sought to produce the last fatal mistake of a direct challenge. And the result of that mistake would be a total victory for the Despiser.

He knew better now. The fallen woman taught him a kind of wisdom. He could not challenge the Despiser for the same reason that he could not make his way through the Despiser’s winter alone: the task was impossible, and mortal human beings accomplished nothing but their own destruction when they attempted the impossible. A leper’s end-prescribed and circumscribed for him by the law of his illness-awaited him not far down the road of his life. He would only hasten his journey toward that end if he lashed himself with impossible demands. And the Land would be utterly lost.

Then he realized that his inability to remember what had brought him to this place, what had happened to him in this place, was a great blessing, a giving of mercy so clear that it amazed him. Suddenly he understood at least in part why Triock had spoken to him of the mercy of new opportunities-and why Triock had refused to share his purpose. He put that purpose aside and looked around the cave for his clothes.

He located them in a heap against one wall, but a moment later he had decided against them. They seemed to represent participation in something that he now wished to eschew. And this white robe was a gift which the dead woman had given him as part and symbol of her larger sacrifice. He accepted it with calm, sad, hollow gratitude.

But he had already started to don his sandals before he realized how badly they reeked of illness. In days of walking, his infection had soaked into the leather, and he was loath to wear the unclean stench. He tossed the sandals back among his discarded apparel. He had come barefoot into this dream, and knew that he would go barefoot and sole-battered out of it again, no matter how he tried to protect himself. In spite of his reawakening caution, he chose not to worry about his feet.

The faint attar of death in the air reminded him that he could not remain in the cave. He drew the robe tight around him and stooped through the entrance to see if he could discover where he was.

Outside, under the grey clouds of day, the sight of the Forest gave him another surge of empty surprise. He recognized Morinmoss; he had crossed this wood once before. His vague knowledge of the Land’s geography told him in general terms where he was, but he had no conception of how he had come here. The last thing in his memory was the slow death of Lord Foul’s winter.

There was little winter to be seen here. The black trees leaned against each other as if they were rooted interminably in the first grey verges of spring; but the air was brisk rather than bitter, and tough grass grew sufficiently over the clear ground between the trunks. He breathed the Forest smells while he examined his unreasoning confidence, and after a moment he felt sure that Morinmoss also was something he should not fear.

When he turned to re-enter the cave, he had chosen at least the first outlines of his new road.

He did not attempt to bury the woman; he had no digging tool and no desire to offer any injury to the soil of the Forest. He wore her robe in part to show his respect for her, but he could not think of any other gesture to make toward her. He wanted to apologize for what he was doing-for what he had done-but had no way to make her hear him. At last he placed her on her bed, arranged her stiff limbs as best he could to give her an appearance of dignity. Then he found a sack among her possessions and packed into it all the food he could find.

After that, he drank the last of her water and left behind the jug to save weight. With a pang of regret, he also left behind the pot of graveling; he knew he would want its warmth, but did not know how to tend it. The knife which lay oddly in the centre of the floor he did not take because he had had enough of knives. Remembering Lena, he lightly kissed the woman’s cold, withered cheek. Then he shrugged his way out of the cave, muttering, as if the word were a talisman he had learned from her sacrifice, “Mercy.”

He strode away into the day of his new comprehension.

He did not hesitate over the choice of directions. He knew from past experience that the terrain of Morinmoss sloped generally downward from northwest to southeast, toward the Plains of Ra. He followed the slopes with his sack over his shoulder and his heart hollow-steady because it was full of lacks, like the heart of a man who had surrendered himself to the prospect of a colourless future.

Before he had covered two leagues, daylight began to fail in the air, and night fell from the clouds like rain. But Morinmoss roused itself to light his way. And after his long rest, he did not need sleep. He slowed his pace so that he could move without disturbing the dark moss, and went on while the Forest grew lambent and restless around him. Its ancient uneasiness, its half-conscious memory of outrage and immense bereavement, was not directed at him-the perennial mood of the trees almost seemed to stand back as he passed, allowing him along his way-but he felt it nonetheless, heard it muttering through the breeze as if Morinmoss were breathing between clenched teeth. His senses remained truncated, winter-blurred, as they had been before his crisis with Pietten and Lena, but still he could perceive the Forest’s sufferance of him. Morinmoss was aware of him and made a special exertion of tolerance on his behalf.

Then he remembered that Garroting Deep also had not raised its hand against him. He remembered Caerroil Wildwood and the Forestal’s unwilling disciple. Though he knew himself suffered, permitted, he murmured “Mercy” to the pale, shining trunks and strove to move carefully, avoiding anything which might give offense to the trees.

His caution limited his progress, and when dawn came he was still wending generally southeast within the woods. But now he was re-entering the demesne of winter. Cold snapped in the air, and the trees were bleak. Grass had given way to bare ground. He could see the first thin skiffs of snow through the gloom ahead of him. And as dawn limped into ill day, he began to learn what a gift the white robe was. Its lightness made it easy to wear, yet its special fabric was warm and comfortable, so that it held out the harshness of the wind. He considered it a better gift than any knife or staff or orcrest-stone, and he kept it sashed gratefully around him.

Once the tree shine had subsided into daylight, he stopped to rest and eat. But he did not need much rest, and after a frugal meal he was up and moving again. The wind began to gust and flutter around him. In less than a league, he left the last black shelter of the Forest, and went out into Foul’s uninterrupted spite.

The wilderness of snow and cold that met his blunt senses seemed unchanged. From the edges of the Forest, the terrain continued to slope gradually downward, through the shallow rumpling of old hills, until it reached the dull river flowing miserably into the northeast. And across his whole view, winter exerted its grey ruination. The frozen ground slumped under the ceaseless rasp of the wind and the weight of the snowdrifts until it looked like irreparable disconsolation or apathy, an abdication of loam and intended verdancy. In spite of his white robe and his recovered strength, he felt the cut of the cold, and he huddled into himself as if the Land’s burden were on his shoulders.

For a moment he peered through the wind with moist eyes to choose his direction. He did not know where he was in relation to the shallows where he had crossed the river. But he felt sure that this river was in fact the Roamsedge, the northern boundary of the Plains of Ra. And the terrain off to his left seemed vaguely familiar. If his memory of the Quest for the Staff of Law did not delude him, he was looking down at the Roamsedge Ford.

Leaning against the wind, limping barefoot over the brutalized ground, he made for the Ford as if it were the gateway to his altered purpose.

But the distance was greater than it had appeared from the elevation of the Forest, and his movements were hampered by wind and snow and hill slopes. Noon came before he reached the last ridge west of the Ford.

When his gaze passed over the top of the ridge and down toward the river crossing, he was startled to see a man standing on the bank.

The man’s visage was hidden by the hood of a Stonedownor cloak, but he faced squarely toward Covenant with his arms akimbo as if he had been impatiently awaiting the Unbeliever’s arrival for some time. Caution urged Covenant to duck out of sight. But almost at once the man gestured brusquely, barking in tones that sounded like a distortion of a voice Covenant should have been able to recognize, “Come, Unbeliever! You have no craft for hiding or flight. I have watched your approach for a league.”

Covenant hesitated, but in his hollow surety he was not afraid. After a moment, he shrugged, and started toward the Ford. As he moved down the hillside, he kept his eyes on the waiting man and searched for some clue to the man’s identity. At first he guessed that the man represented a part of his lost experience in the Forest and the woman’s cave-a part he might never be able to comprehend or evaluate. But then his eyes made out the pattern woven into the shoulders of the Stonedownor cloak. It was a pattern like crossed lightning.

“Triock!” he gasped under his breath. Triock?

He ran over the hard ground, hurried up to the man, caught him by the shoulders. “Triock.” An awkward thickness in his throat constricted his voice. “Triock? What are you doing here? How did you get here? What happened?”

As Covenant panted questions at him, the man averted his face so that the hood sheltered his features. His hands leaped to Covenant’s wrists, tore Covenant’s hands off his shoulders as if their touch were noxious to him. With unmistakable ire, he thrust Covenant away from him. But when he spoke, his barking tone sounded almost casual.

“Well, ur-Lord Covenant, Unbeliever and white gold wielder.” He invested the titles with a sarcastic twang. “You have not come far in so many days. Have you rested well in Morinmoss?”

Covenant stared and rubbed his wrists; Triock’s anger left a burning sensation in them, like a residue of acid. The pain gave him an instant of doubt, but he recognized Triock’s profile beyond the edge of the hood. In his confusion, he could not think of a reason for the Stonedownor’s belligerence. “What happened?” he repeated uncertainly. “Did you get in touch with Mhoram? Did you find that Unfettered One?”

Triock kept his face averted. But his fingers flexed and curled like claws, hungry for violence.

Then a wave of sorrow effaced Covenant’s confusion. “Did you find Lena?”

With the same hoarse casualness, Triock said, “I followed you because I do not trust your purpose-or your companions. I see that I have not misjudged.”

“Did you find Lena?”

“Your vaunted aim against the Despiser is expensive in companions as well as in time. How was the Giant persuaded from your side? Did you leave him”-he sneered-“among the perverse pleasures of Morinmoss?”

“Lena?” Covenant insisted thickly.

Triock’s hands jerked to his face as if he meant to claw out his eyes. His palms muffled his voice, made it sound more familiar. “With a spike in her belly. And a man slain at her side.” Fierce trembling shook him. But abruptly he dropped his hands, and his tone resumed its mordant insouciance. “Perhaps you will ask me to believe that they slew each other.”

Through his empty sorrow, Covenant replied, “It was my fault. She tried to save me. Then I killed him.” He felt the incompleteness of this, and added, “He wanted my ring.”

“The fool!” Triock barked sharply. “Did he believe he would be permitted to keep it?” But he did not give Covenant time to respond. Quietly again, he asked, “And the Giant?”

“We were ambushed. He stayed behind-so that Lena and I could get away.”

A harsh laugh spat between Triock’s teeth. “Faithful to the last,” he gibed. The next instant, a wild sob convulsed him as if his self-control had snapped-as if a frantic grief had burst the bonds which held it down. But immediately he returned to sarcasm. Showing Covenant a flash of his teeth, he sneered, “It is well that I have come.”

“Well?” Covenant breathed. “Triock, what happened to you?” “Well, forsooth.” The man sniffed as if he were fighting tears. ” You have lost much time in that place of harm and seduction. With each passing day, the Despiser grows mightier. He straitly binds-” His teeth grinned at Covenant under the shadow of his hood. “Thomas Covenant, your work must be no longer delayed. I have come to take you to Ridjeck Thome.”

Covenant gazed intensely at the man. A moment passed while he tested his hollow core and found that it remained sure. Then he bent all his attention toward Triock, tried to drive his truncated sight past its limits, its superficiality, so that he might catch some glimpse of Triock’s inner estate. But the winter, and Triock’s distraction, foiled him. He saw the averted face, the rigid flex and claw of the fingers, the baring of the white wet teeth, the turmoil, but he could not penetrate beyond them. Some stark travail was upon the Stonedownor. In sympathy and bafflement and self-defence, Covenant said, “Triock, you’ve got to tell me what happened.”

“Must I?”

“Yes.”

“Do you threaten me? Will you turn the wild magic against me if I refuse?” Triock winced as if he were genuinely afraid, and an oddly craven grimace flicked like a spasm across his lips. But then he shrugged sharply and turned his back, so that he was facing straight into the wind. “Ask, then.”

Threaten? Covenant asked Triock’s hunched shoulders. No, no. I don’t want it to happen again. I’ve done enough harm.

“Ask!”

“Did you”-he could hardly get the words through his clogged throat-“did you find that Unfettered One?”

“Yes!”

“Did he contact Mhoram?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“He did not suffice!”

The bitterness of the words barked along the bitter wind, and Covenant could only repeat, “Triock, what happened?”

“The Unfettered One lacked strength to match the lomillialor. He took it from me and could not match it. Yeurquin and Quirrel were lost-more companions lost while you dally and falter!”

Both lost.

“I didn’t-How did you find me?”

“This is expensive blood, Covenant. When will it sate you?”

Sate me? Triock! The question hurt him, but he endured it. He had long ago lost the right to take umbrage at anything Triock might say. With difficulty, he asked again, “How did you find me?”

“I waited! Where else could you have gone?”

“Triock.” Covenant covered himself with the void of his calm and said, “Triock, look at me.”

“I do not wish to look at you.”

“Look at me!”

“I have no stomach for the sight.”

“Triock!” Covenant placed his hand on the man’s shoulder.

Instantly, Triock spun and struck Covenant across the cheek.

The blow did not appear powerful; Triock swung shortly, as if he were trying to pull back his arm. But force erupted at the impact, threw Covenant to the ground several feet away. His cheek stung with a deep pain like vitriol that made his eyes stream. He barely saw Triock flinch, turn and start to flee, then catch himself and stop, waiting across the distance of a dozen yards as if he expected Covenant to hurl a spear through his back.

The pain roared like a rush of black waters in Covenant’s head, but he forced himself to sit up, ignored his burning cheek, and said quietly, “I’m not going to Foul’s Creche.”

“Not?” Surprise spun Triock to face Covenant.

“No.” Covenant was vaguely surprised by his own certitude. “I’m going to cross the river-I’m going to try to go south with the Ramen. They might- ”

“You dare?” Triock yelled. He seemed livid with fury, but he did not advance toward Covenant. “You cost me my love! My comrades! My home! You slay every glad face of my life! And then you say you will deny the one promise which might recompense? Unbeliever! Do you think I would not kill you for such treachery?”

Covenant shrugged. “Kill me if you want to. It doesn’t make any difference.” The pain in his face interfered with his concentration, but still he saw the self-contradiction behind Triock’s threat. Fear and anger were balanced in the Stonedownor, as if he were two men trapped between flight and attack, straining in opposite directions. Somewhere amid those antagonists was the Triock Covenant remembered. He resisted the roaring in his head and tried to explain so that this Triock might understand.

“The only way you can kill me is if I’m dying in my own world. You saw me-when you summoned me. Maybe you could kill me. But if I’m really dying, it doesn’t matter whether you kill me or not. I’ll get killed somehow. Dreams are like that.

“But before you decide, let me try to tell you why-why I’m not going to Foul’s Creche.”

He got painfully to his feet. He wanted to go to Triock, look deeply into the man’s face, but Triock’s conflicting passions kept him at a distance.

“I’m not exactly innocent. I know that. I told you it was my fault, and it is. But it isn’t all my fault. Lena and Elena and Atiaran-and Giants and Ranyhyn and Ramen and Bloodguard-and you-it isn’t all my fault. All of you made decisions for yourselves. Lena made her own decision when she tried to save me from punishment-after I raped her. Atiaran made her own decision when she helped me get to Revelstone. Elena made her own decision when she drank the EarthBlood. You made your own decision-you decided to be loyal to the Oath of Peace. None of it is entirely my doing.”

“You talk as if we exist,” Triock growled bitterly.

“As far as my responsibility goes, you do. I don’t control my nightmares. Part of me-the part that’s talking-is a victim, as you are. Just less innocent.

“But Foul has arranged it all. He-or the part of me that does the dreaming-has been arranging everything from the beginning. He’s been manipulating me, and I finally figured out why. He wants this ring-he wants the wild magic. And he knows-knows! — that if he can get me feeling guilty and responsible and miserable enough I’ll try to fight him on his own ground-on his own terms.

” I can’ t win a fight like that. I don’ t know how to win it. So he wants me to do it. That way he ends up with everything. And I end up like any other suicide.

“Look at me, Triock! Look! You can see that I’m diseased. I’m a leper. It’s carved into me so loud anybody could see it. And lepers-commit suicide easily. All they have to do is forget the law of staying alive. That law is simple, selfish, practical caution. Foul’s done a pretty good job of making me forget it-that’s why you might be able to kill me now if you want to. But if I’ve got any choice left, the only way I can use it is by remembering who I am. Thomas Covenant, leper. I’ve got to give up these impossible ideas of trying to make restitution for what I’ve done. I’ve got to give up guilt and duty, or whatever it is I’m calling responsibility these days. I’ve got to give up trying to make myself innocent again. It can’t be done. It’s suicide to try. And suicide for me is the only absolute, perfect way Foul can win. Without it, he doesn’t get the wild magic, and it’s just possible that somewhere, somehow, he’ll run into something that can beat him.

“So I’m not going-I am not going to Foul’s Creche. I’m going to do something simple and selfish and practical and cautious instead. I’m going to take care of myself as a leper should. I’ll go into the Plains-I’ll find the Ramen. They’ll take me with them. The Ranyhyn-the Ranyhyn are probably going south already to hide in the mountains. The Ramen will take me with them. Mhoram doesn’t know I’m here, so he won’t be expecting anything from me.

“Please understand, Triock. My grief for you is-it’ll never end. I loved Elena, and I love the Land. But if I can just keep myself alive the way I should-Foul can’t win. He can’t win.”

Triock met this speech queerly across the distance between them. His anger seemed to fade, but it was not replaced by understanding. Instead, a mixture of cunning and desperation gained the upper hand on his desire to flee, so that his voice held a half-hysterical note of cajolery as he said, “Come, Unbeliever-do not take this choice hastily. Let us speak of it calmly. Let me urge”-he looked around as if in search of assistance, then went on hurriedly- “you are hungry and worn. That Forest has exacted a harsh penance-I see it. Let us rest here for a time. We are in no danger. I will build a fire-prepare food for you. We will talk of this choice while it may still be altered.”

Why? Covenant wanted to ask. Why have you changed like this? But he already knew too many explanations. And Triock bustled away promptly in search of firewood as if to forestall any questions. The land on this side of the Roamsedge had been wooded at one time, and before long he had collected a large pile of dead brush and bushes, which he placed in the shelter of a hill a short distance from the Ford. All the time, he kept his face averted from Covenant.

When he was satisfied with his quantity of wood, he stooped in front of the pile with his hands hidden as if for some obscure reason he did not want Covenant to see how he started the fire. As soon as flames had begun to spread through the brush, he positioned himself on the far side of the fire and urged Covenant to approach its warmth.

Covenant acquiesced gladly enough. His robe could not keep the cold out of his hands and feet; he could hardly refuse a fire. And he could hardly refuse Triock’s desire to discuss his decision. His debt to Triock was large-not easily borne. He sat down within the radiant balm of the fire opposite Triock and silently watched him prepare a meal.

As he worked, Triock mumbled to himself in a tone that made Covenant feel oddly uncomfortable. His movements seemed awkward, as if he were trying to conceal arcane gestures while he handled the food. He avoided Covenant’s gaze, but whenever Covenant looked away, he could feel Triock’s eyes flick furtively over him and flinch away. He was startled when Triock said abruptly, “So you have given up hate.”

“Given up-?” He had not thought of the matter in those terms before. “Maybe I have. It doesn’t seem like a very good answer. I mean, aside from the fact that there’s no room for it in-in the law of leprosy.

Hate, humiliation, revenge-I make a mistake every time I let them touch me. I risk my life. And love, too, if you want to know the truth. But aside from that. It doesn’t seem that I could beat Foul that way. I’m just a man. I can’t hate-forever- as he can. And”- he forced himself to articulate a new perception- “my hate isn’t pure. It’s corrupt because part of me always hates me instead of him. Always.”

Triock placed a stoneware pot of stew in the fire to cook and said in a tone of eerie conviction, “It is the only answer. Look about you. Health, love, duty-none suffice against this winter. Only those who hate are immortal.”

“Immortal?”

“Certainly. Death claims all else in the end. How else do the Despiser and-and his”- he said the name as if it dismayed him- “Ravers endure? They hate.” In his hoarse, barking tone, the word took on a wide range of passion and violence, as if indeed it were the one word of truth and transcendence.

The savour of the stew began to reach Covenant. He found that he was hungry-and that his inner quiescence covered even Triock’s queer asseverations. He stretched out his legs, reclined on one elbow. “Hate,” he sighed softly, reducing the word to manageable dimensions. “Is that it, Triock? I think-I think I’ve spent this whole thing-dream, delusion, fact, whatever you want to call it-I’ve spent it all looking for a good answer to death. Resistance, rape-ridicule- love-hate? Is that it? Is that your answer?”

“Do not mistake me,” Triock replied. “I do not hate death.”

Covenant gazed into the dance of the fire for a moment and let the aroma of the stew remind him of deep, sure, empty peace. Then he said as if he were completing a litany, “What do you hate?”

“I hate life.”

Brusquely, Triock spooned stew into bowls. When he handed a bowl around the fire to Covenant, his hand shook. But as soon as he had returned to his hooded covert beyond the flames, he snapped angrily, “Do you think I am unjustified? You, Unbeliever?”

No. No. Covenant could not lift up his head against the accusation in Triock’s voice. Hate me as much as you need to, he breathed into the crackling of the fire and the steaming stew. I don’t want anyone else to sacrifice himself for me. Without looking up, he began to eat.

The taste of the stew was not unpleasant, but it had a disconcerting under-flavour which made it difficult to swallow. Yet once a mouthful had passed his throat, he found it warm and reassuring. Slowly, drowsiness spread outward from it. After a few moments, he was vaguely surprised to see that he had emptied the bowl.

He put it aside and lay down on his back. Now the fire seemed to grow higher and hotter, so that he only caught glimpses of Triock watching him keenly through the weaving spring and crackle of the flames. He was beginning to rest when he heard Triock say through the fiery veil, “Unbeliever, why do you not resume your journey to Foul’s Creche? Surely you do not believe that the Despiser will permit your flight-after he has striven so to bring about this confrontation of which you speak.”

“He won’t want me to get away,” Covenant replied emptily, surely. “But I think he’s too busy doing other things to stop me. And if I can slip through his fingers just once, he’ll let me go-at least for a while. I’ve-I’ve already done so much for him. The only thing he still wants from me is the ring. If I don’t threaten him with it, he’ll let me go while he fights the Lords. And then he’ll be too late. I’ll be gone as far as the Ranyhyn can take me.”

“But what of this-this Creator”- Triock spat the word- “who they say also chose you. Has he no hold upon you?”

Sleepiness only strengthened Covenant’s confidence. “I don’t owe him anything. He chose me for this-I didn’t choose it or him. If he doesn’t like what I do, let him find someone else.”

“But what of the people who have died and suffered for you?” Triock’s anger returned, and he ripped the words as if they were illustrations of meaning which he tore from the walls of a secret Hall of Gifts deep within him. “How will you supply the significance they have earned from you? They have lost themselves in bootless death if you flee.”

I know, Covenant sighed to the sharp flames and the wind. We’re all futile, alive or dead. He made an effort to speak clearly through his coming sleep. “What kind of significance will it give them if I commit suicide? They won’t thank me for throwing away-something that cost them so much. While I’m alive”- he lost the thought, then recovered it- “while I’m alive, the Land is still alive.”

“Because it is your dream!”

Yes. For that reason among others.

Covenant experienced a moment of stillness before the passion of Triock’s response penetrated him. Then he hauled himself up and peered blearily through the fire at the Stonedownor. Because he could think of nothing else to say, he murmured, “Why don’t you get some rest? You probably exhausted yourself waiting for me.”

“I have given up sleep.”

Covenant yawned. “Don’t be ridiculous. What do you think you are? A Bloodguard?”

In answer, Triock laughed tautly, like a cord about to snap.

The sound made Covenant feel that something was wrong, that he should not have been so irresistibly sleepy. He should have had the strength to meet Triock’s distress responsibly. But he could hardly keep his eyes open. Rubbing his stiff face, he said, “Why don’t you admit it? You’re afraid I’ll sneak off as soon as you stop watching me.”

“I do not mean to lose you now, Thomas Covenant.”

“I wouldn’t-do that to you.” Covenant blinked and found his cheek resting against the hard ground. He could not remember having reclined. Wake up, he said to himself without conviction. Sleep seemed to be falling on him out of the greyness of the sky. He mumbled, “I still don’t know how you found me.” But he was asleep before the sound of his voice reached his ears.

He felt he had been unconscious for only a moment when he became aware on a half-subliminal level of darknesses thronging toward him out of the winter, as abysmal as death. Against them came faint alien gleams of music which he recognized and did not remember. They melodied themselves about him in blue-green intervals that he could neither hear nor see. They appeared weak, elusive, like voices calling to him across a great distance. But they were insistent; they nudged him, sang to him, plied him toward consciousness. Through his uncomprehending stupor, they danced a blind, voiceless warning of peril.

To his own surprise, he heard himself muttering: He drugged me. By hell! that crazy man drugged me. The assertion made no sense. How had he arrived at such a conclusion? Triock was an honest man, frank and magnanimous in grief-a man who clove to mercy and peace despite their cost to himself.

He drugged me.

Where had that conviction come from? Covenant fumbled with numb fingers through his unconsciousness, while an unshakable sense of peril clutched his heart. Darkness and harm crowded toward him. Behind his sleep-behind the glaucous music-he seemed to see Triock’s campfire still burning.

How did he light that fire?

How did he find me?

The urgent gleams were trying to tell him things he could not hear. Triock was a danger. Triock had drugged him. He must get up and flee-flee somewhere-flee into the Forest.

He struggled into a sitting position, wrenched his eyes open. He faced the low campfire in the last dead light of evening. Winter blew about him as if it were salivating gall. He could smell the approach of snow; already a few fetid flakes were visible at the edges of the firelight. Triock sat cross-legged opposite him, stared at him out of the smouldering abomination of his eyes.

In the air before Covenant danced faint glaucous gleams, fragments of inaudible song. They were shrill with insistence: flee! flee!

“What is it?” He tried to beat off the clinging hands of slumber. “What are they doing?”

“Send it away,” Triock answered in a voice full of fear and loathing. “Rid yourself of it. He cannot claim you now.”

“What is it?” Covenant lurched to his feet and stood trembling, hardly able to contain the panic in his muscles. “What’s happening?”

“It is the voice of a Forestal.” Triock spoke simply, but every angle of his inflection expressed execration. He jumped erect and balanced himself as if he meant to give chase when Covenant began to run. “Garroting Deep has sent Caer-Caveral to Morinmoss. But he cannot claim you. I can”-his voice shook-“I cannot permit it.”

“Claim? Permit?” The peril gripping Covenant’s heart tightened until he gasped. Something in him that he could not remember urged him to trust the gleams. “You drugged me!”

“So that you would not escape!” White, rigid fear clenched Triock, and he stammered through drawn lips, “He urges you to destroy me. He cannot reach far from Morinmoss, but he urges-the white gold-! Ah!” Abruptly, his voice sharpened into a shriek. “Do not toy with me! I cannot-! Destroy me and have done! I cannot endure it!”

The cries cut through Covenant’s own dread. His distress receded, and he found himself grieving for the Stonedownor. Across the urging of the gleams, he breathed thickly, “Destroy you? Don’t you know that you’re safe from me? Don’t you understand that I haven’t got one godforsaken idea how to use this-this white gold? I couldn’t hurt you if that were my heart’s sole desire.”

“What?” Triock howled. “Still? Have I feared you for nothing?”

“For nothing,” groaned Covenant.

Triock gaped bleakly out from under his hood, then threw back his head and began to laugh. Mordant glee barked through his teeth, making the music shiver as if its abhorrence were no less than his. “Powerless!” he laughed. “By the mirth of my master! Powerless!”

Chuckling savagely, he started toward Covenant.

At once, the silent song rushed gleaming between them. But Triock advanced against the lights. “Begone!” he growled. “You also will pay for your part in this.” With a deft movement, he caught one spangle in each fist. Their wailing shimmered in the air as he crushed them between his fingers.

Ringing like broken crystal, the rest of the music vanished.

Covenant reeled as if an unseen support had been snatched away. He flung up his hands against Triock’s approach, stumbled backward. But the man did not touch him. Instead, he stamped one foot on the hard ground. The earth bucked under Covenant, stretched him at Triock’s feet.

Then Triock threw off his hood. His visage was littered with broken possibilities, wrecked faiths and loves, but behind his features his skull shone with pale malice. The backs of his eyes were as black as night, and his teeth gaped as if they were hungry for the taste of flesh. Leering down at Covenant, he smirked, “No, groveller. I will not strike you again. The time for masquerading has ended. My master may frown upon me if I harm you now.”

“Master?” Covenant croaked.

“I am turiya Raver, also called Herem-and Kinslaughterer — and Triock.” He laughed again grotesquely. “This guise has served me well, though ‘Triock’ is not pleased. Behold me, groveller! I need no longer let his form and thoughts disguise me. You are powerless. Ah, I savour that jest! So now I permit you to know me as I am. It was I who slew the Giants of Seareach-I who slew the Unfettered One as he sought to warn that fool Mhoram-I who have captured the white gold! Brothers! I will sit upon the master’s right hand and rule the universe!”

As he gloated, he reached into his cloak and drew out the lomillialor rod. Brandishing it in Covenant’s face, he barked, “Do you see it? High Wood! I spit on it. The test of truth is not a match for me.” Then he gripped it between his hands as if he meant to break it, and shouted quick cruel words over it. It caught fire, blazed for an instant in red agony, and fell into cinders.

Gleefully, the Raver snarled at Covenant, “Thus I signal your doom, as I was commanded. Breathe swiftly, groveller. There are only moments left to you.”

Covenant’s muscles trembled as if the ground still pitched under him, but he braced himself, struggled to his feet. He felt stunned with horror, helpless. Yet in the back of his mind he strained to find an escape. “The ring,” he panted. “Why don’t you just take the ring?”

A black response leaped in Triock’s eyes. “Would you give it to me?”

“No!” He thought desperately that if he could goad Triock into some act of power, Caer-Caveral’s glaucous song might return to aid him.

“Then I will tell you, groveller, that I do not take your ring because the command of my master is too strong. He does not choose that I should have such power. In other times, he did not bind us so straitly, and we were free to work his will in our several ways. But he claims-and- I obey.”

“Try to take it!” Covenant panted. “Be the ruler of the universe yourself. Why should he have it?”

For an instant, he thought he saw something like regret in Triock’s face. But the Raver only snarled, “Because the Law of Death has been broken, and he is not alone. There are eyes of compulsion upon me even now-eyes which may not be defied.” His leer of hunger returned. “Perhaps you will see them before you are slain-before my brother and I tear your living heart from you and eat it in your last sight.”

He laughed harshly, and as if in answer the darkness around the campfire grew thicker. The night blackened like an accumulation of spite, then drew taut and formed discrete figures that came forward. Covenant heard their feet rustling over the cold ground. He whirled, and found himself surrounded by ur-viles.

When their eyeless faces felt his stricken stare, they hesitated for an instant. Their wide, drooling nostrils quivered as they tasted the air for signs of power, evidence of wild magic. Then they rushed forward and overwhelmed him.

Livid red blades wheeled above him like the shattering of the heavens. But instead of stabbing him, they pressed flat against his forehead. Red waves of horror crashed through him. He screamed once and went limp in the grasp of the ur-viles.