The Power That Preserves

Eighteen: The Corrupt

HE struggled desperately, trying to regain the surface. But the mud clogged his movements, sucked at his every effort, and the hands on his ankles tugged him downward swiftly. He grappled toward Foamfollower, but found nothing. Already, he felt he was far beneath the surface of the pit.

He held his breath grimly. His obdurate instinct for survival made him keep on fighting though he knew that he could never float to the surface from this cold depth. Straining against the mud, he bent, worked his hands down his legs in an effort to reach the fingers which held him. But he could not find them. They pulled him downward-he felt their wet clench on his ankles-but his own hands passed through where those hands should have been, must have been.

In his extremity, he seemed to feel the white gold pulsing for an instant. But the pulse gave him no sensation of power, and it disappeared as soon as he reached toward it with his mind.

The air in his lungs began to fail. Red veins of light intaglioed the insides of his eyelids. He began to cry wildly, Not like this! Not like this!

The next moment, he felt that he had changed directions. While his lungs wailed, the hands pulled him horizontally, then began to take him upward. With a damp sucking noise, they heaved him out of the mud into dank, black air.

He snatched at the air in shuddering gasps. It was stale and noisome, like the air in a wet crypt, but it was life, and he gulped it greedily. For a long moment, the red blazonry in his brain blinded him to the darkness. But as his respiration subsided into dull panting, he squeezed his eyes free of mud and blinked them open, tried to see where he was.

The blackness around him was complete.

He was lying on moist clay. When he moved, his left shoulder touched a muddy wall. He got to his knees and reached up over his head; an arm’s length above him, he found the ceiling. He seemed to be against one wall of a buried chamber in the clay.

A damp voice near his ear said, “He cannot see.” It sounded small and frightened, but the surprise of it startled him, made him jerk away and slip panting against the wall.

“That is well,” another timorous voice responded. “He might harm us.”

“It is not well. Provide light for him.” This voice seemed more resolute, but it still quavered anxiously.

“No! No, no.” Covenant could distinguish eight or ten speakers protesting.

The sterner voice insisted. “If we did not intend to aid him, we should not have saved him.”

“He may harm us!”

“It is not too late. Drown him.”

“No.” The sterner voice stiffened. “We chose this risk.”

“Oh! If the Maker learns-!”

“We chose, I say! To save and then slay-that would surely be Maker-work. Better that he should harm us. I will”- the voice hesitated fearfully- “I will provide light myself if I must.”

“Stand ready!” speakers chorused, spreading an alarm against Covenant.

A moment later, he heard an odd slippery noise like the sound of a stick being thrust through mud. A dim red glow the colour of rocklight opened in the darkness a few feet from his face.

The light came from a grotesque figure of mud standing on the floor of the chamber. It was about two feet tall, and it faced him like a clay statue formed by the unadept hands of a child. He could discern awkward limbs, vague misshapen features, but no eyes, ears, mouth, nose. Reddish pockets of mud in its brown form shone dully, giving off a scanty illumination.

He found that he was in the end of a tunnel. Near him was a wide pit of bubbling mud, and beyond it the walls, floor, and ceiling came together, sealing the space. But in the opposite direction the tunnel stretched away darkly.

There, at the limit of the light, stood a dozen or more short clay forms like the one in front of him.

They did not move, made no sound. They looked inanimate, as if they had been left behind by whatever creature had formed the tunnel. But the tunnel contained no one or nothing else that might have spoken. Covenant gaped at the gnarled shapes, and tried to think of something to say.

Abruptly, the mud pit began to seethe. Directly in front of Covenant, several more clay forms hopped suddenly out of the mire, dragging two huge feet with them. The glowing shape quickly retreated down the tunnel to make room for them. In an instant, they had heaved Foamfollower out onto the floor of the tunnel and had backed away from him to join the forms which stood watching Covenant.

Foamfollower’s Giantish lungs had sustained him; he needed no time at all to recover. He flung himself around in the constricted space and lurched snarling toward the clay forms with rage in his eyes and one heavy fist upraised.

At once, the sole light went out. Amid shrill cries of fear, the mud creatures scudded away down the tunnel.

“Foamfollower!” Covenant shouted urgently. “They saved us!”

He heard the Giant come to a stop, heard him panting hoarsely. “Foamfollower,” he repeated. “Giant!”

Foamfollower breathed deeply for a moment, then said, “My friend?” In the darkness, his voice sounded cramped, too full of suppressed emotions. “Are you well?”

“Well?” Covenant felt momentarily unbalanced on the brink of hysteria. But he steadied himself. “They didn’t hurt me. Foamfollower-I think they saved us.”

The Giant panted a while longer, regaining his self-command. “Yes,” he groaned. “Yes. Now I have taught them to fear us.” Then, projecting his voice down the tunnel, he said, “Please pardon me. You have indeed saved us. I have little restraint-yes, I am quick to anger, too quick. Yet without purposing to do so you wrung my heart. You took my friend and left me. I feared him dead-despair came upon me. Bannor of the Bloodguard told us to look for help wherever we went. Fool that I was, I did not look for it so near to Soulcrusher’s demesne. When you took me also, I had no thought left but fury. I crave your pardon.”

Empty silence answered him out of the darkness.

“Ah, hear me!” he called intently. “You have saved us from the hands of the Despiser. Do not abandon us now.”

The silence stretched, then broke. “Despair is Maker-work,” a voice said. “It was not our intent.”

“Do not trust them!” other voices cried. “They are hard.”

But the shuffling noise of feet came back toward Covenant and Foamfollower, and several of the clay forms lit themselves as they moved, so that the tunnel was filled with light. The creatures advanced cautiously, stopped well beyond the Giant’s reach. “We also ask your pardon,” said the leader as firmly as it could.

” Ah, you need not ask,” Foamfollower replied. ” It may be that I am slow to recognize my friends-but when I have recognized them, they have no cause to fear me. I am Saltheart Foamfollower, the”- he swallowed as if the words threatened to choke him- “the last of the Seareach Giants. My friend is Thomas Covenant, ur-Lord and bearer of the white gold.”

“We know,” the leader said. “We have heard. We are the jheherrin — the aussat jheherrin Befylam. The Maker-place has no secret that the jheherrin have not heard. You were spoken of. Plans were made against you. The jheherrin debated and chose to aid you.”

“If the Maker learns,” a voice behind the leader quavered, “we are doomed.”

“That is true. If he guesses at our aid, he will no longer suffer us. We fear for our lives. But you are his enemies. And the legends say-“

Abruptly, the leader stopped, turned to confer with the other jheherrin. Covenant watched in fascination as they whispered together. From a distance, they all looked alike, but closer inspection revealed that they were as different as the clay work of different children. They varied in size, shape, hue, timidity, tone of voice. Yet they shared an odd appearance of unsolidity. They bulged and squished when they moved as if they were only held together by a fragile skin of surface tension-as if any jar or blow might reduce them to amorphous wet mud.

After a short conference, the leader returned. Its voice quivered as if it were afraid of its own audacity as it said, “Why have you come? You dare-What is your purpose?”

Foamfollower answered grimly, so that the jheherrin would believe him, “It is our purpose to destroy Lord Foul the Despiser.”

Covenant winced at the bald statement. But he could not deny it. How else could he describe what he meant to do?

The jheherrin conferred again, then announced rapidly, anxiously, “It cannot be done. Come with us.”

The suddenness of this made it sound like a command, though the leader’s voice was too tremulous to carry much authority. Covenant felt impelled to protest, not because he had any objection to following the jheherrin, but because he wanted to know why they considered his task impossible. But they forestalled him by the celerity of their withdrawal; before he could frame a question, half the lights were gone and the rest were going.

Foamfollower shrugged and motioned Covenant ahead of him down the tunnel. Covenant nodded. With a groan of weariness, he began to crouch along behind the jheherrin.

They moved with unexpected speed. Bulging and oozing at every step, they half trotted and half poured their way down the tunnel. Covenant could not keep up with them. In his cramped crouch, his lungs ached on the stale air, and his feet slipped erratically in the slimy mud. Foamfollower’s pace was even slower; the low ceiling forced him to crawl. But some of the jheherrln stayed behind with them, guiding them past the bends and intersections of the passage. And before long the tunnel began to grow larger. As the number and complexity of the junctions increased, the ceiling rose. Soon Covenant was able to stand erect, and Foamfollower could move at a crouch. Then they travelled more swiftly.

Their journey went on for a long time. Through intricate clusters of intersections where tunnels honeycombed the earth, and the travellers caught glimpses of other creatures, all hastening the same way, through mud so wet and thick that Covenant could barely wade it and shiny coal-lodes reflecting the rocklight of the jheherrin garishly, they tramped for leagues with all the speed Covenant could muster. But that speed was not great, and it became steadily less as the leagues passed. He had been two days without food and closer to ten without adequate rest. The caked mud throbbed like fever on his forehead. And the numbness in his hands and feet-a lack of sensation which had nothing to do with the cold-was spreading.

Yet he trudged on. He was not afraid that he would cripple himself; in his weariness, that perpetual leper’s dread had lost its power over him. Feet, head, hunger-the conditions for his return to his own world were being met. It was not the fear of leprosy which drove him. He had other motivations.

The conditions of the trek gradually improved. Rock replaced the mud of the tunnel; the air grew slowly lighter, cleaner; the temperature moderated. Such things helped Covenant keep going. And whenever he faltered, Foamfollower’s concern and encouragement steadied him. League after league, he went on as if he were trying to erase the troublesome numbness of his feet on the bare rock.

At last he lapsed into somnolence. He took no more notice of his surroundings or his guides or his exhaustion. He did not feel the hand Foamfollower placed on his shoulder from time to time to direct him. When he found himself unexpectedly stationary in a large, rocklit cavern full of milling creatures, he stared at it dumbly as if he could not imagine how he had arrived there.

Most of the creatures stayed a safe distance from him and Foamfollower, but a few dragged themselves forward, carrying clay bowls of water and food. As they approached, they oozed with instinctive fear. Nevertheless, they came close enough to offer the bowls.

Covenant reached out to accept, but the Giant stopped him.

“Ah, jheherrin,” Foamfollower said in a formal tone, “your hospitality honours us. If we could, we would return honour to you by accepting. But we are not like you-our lives are unalike. Your food would do us harm rather than help.”

This speech roused Covenant somewhat. He made himself look into the bowls and found that Foamfollower was right. The food had the appearance of liquefied marl, and it reeked of old rot, as if dead flesh had mouldered in it for centuries.

But the water was fresh and pure. Foamfollower accepted it with a bow of thanks, drank deeply, then handed it to Covenant.

For the first time, Covenant realized that Foamfollower’s sack had been lost in the thorn wastes.

The rush of cold water into his emptiness helped him shake off more of his somnolence. He drank the bowl dry, savouring the purity of the water as if he believed he would never taste anything clean again. When he returned it to the waiting, trembling jheherrin, he did his best to match Foamfollower’s bow.

Then he began to take stock of his situation. The cavern already held several hundred creatures, and more were arriving constantly. Like the jheherrin who had rescued him, they all appeared to be made of animated mud. They were grotesquely formed, like monsters ridiculed for their monstrosity; they lacked any sense organs that Covenant could recognize. Yet he was vaguely surprised to see that they came in several different types. In addition to the short erect forms he had first seen, there were two or three distinct beast-shapes, which looked like miserably failed attempts to mould horses, wolves, Cavewights in mud, and one oddly serpentine group of belly crawlers.

“Foamfollower?” he murmured. A painful intuition twisted in him. “What are they?”

“They name themselves in the tongue of the Old Lords,” Foamfollower replied carefully, as if he were skirting something dangerous, “according to their shapes. Those who rescued us are the aussat Befylam of the jheherrin. Other Befylam you see-the fael Befylam”- he pointed to the crawlers- “and the roge”- he indicated the Cavewight-like creatures. “I have heard portions of their talk as we marched,” he explained. But he did not continue.

Covenant felt nauseated by the thrust of his guess. He insisted, “What are they?”

Under the mud which darkened his face, Foamfollower’s jaw muscles knotted. His voice quivered slightly as he said, “Ask them. Let them speak of it if they will.” He stared around the cavern, did not meet Covenant’s gaze.

“We will speak,” a cold, dusky voice said. One of the fael jheherrin Befylam crawled a short distance toward them. It slopped wetly over the rock as it moved, and when it halted, it lay panting and gasping like a landed fish. Resolution and fear opposed each other in every heave of its length. But Covenant was not repelled. He felt wrung with pity for all the jheherrin. “We will speak,” the crawler repeated. “You are hard-you threaten us all.”

“They will destroy us,” a host of voices whimpered.

“But we have chosen to aid.”

“The choice was not unopposed!” voices cried.

“We have chosen. You are-the legend says- ” It faltered in confusion. “We accept this risk.” Then a wave of misery filled its voice. “We beg you-do not turn against us.”

Evenly, firmly, Foamfollower said, “We will never willingly harm the jheherrin.”‘

A silence like disbelief answered him from every part of the cavern. But then a few voices said in a tone of weary self-abandonment, “Speak, then. We have chosen.”

The crawler steadied itself. “We will speak. We have chosen. White gold human, you ask what we are. We are the jheherrin- the soft ones-Maker-work.” As it spoke, the rocklight pulsed in the air like sorrow.

‘ “The Maker labours deep in the fastness of his home, breeding armies. He takes living flesh as you know living flesh, and works his power upon it, shaping power and malice to serve his own. But his work does not always grow to his desires. At times the result is weakness rather than strength. At times his making is blind-or crippled-or stillborn. Such spawn he casts into a vast quagmire of fiery mud to be consumed.”

A vibration of remembered terror filled the cavern.

“But there is another potency in that abysm. We are not slain. In agony we become the jheherrin- the soft ones. We are transformed. From the depths of the pit we crawl.”

“We crawl,” voices echoed.

“In lightless combs lost even to the memory of the Maker-“

“Lost.”

“- we supplicate our lives.”

“Lives.”

“From the mud of the thorn wastes to the very walls of the Maker-place, we wander in soil and fear, searching-“

“Searching.”

“- listening — “

“Listening.”

“- waiting.”

“Waiting.”

“The surface of the Earth is denied to us. We would perish in dust if the light of the sun were to touch us. And we cannot delve-we cannot make new tunnels to lead us from this place. We are soft.”

“Lost.”

“And we dare not offend the Maker. We live in sufferance-he smiles upon our abjection.”

“Lost.”

“Yet we retain the shapes of what we were. We are”-the voice shuddered as if it feared it would be stricken for its audacity-“not servants of the Maker.”

Hundreds of the jheherrin gasped in trepidation.

“Many of our combs border the passages of the Maker. We search the walls and listen. We hear-the Maker has no secret. We heard his enmity against you, his intent against you. In the name of the legend, we debated and chose. Any aid that could be concealed from the Maker, we choose to give.”

As the crawler finished, all the jheherrin fell silent, and watched Covenant while he groped for a response. Part of him wanted to weep, to throw his arms around the monstrous creatures and weep. But his purpose was rigid within him. He felt that he could not bend to gentleness without breaking. To destroy Lord Foul, he grated silently. Yes! “But you,” he responded harshly, “they said it’s impossible. Cannot be done.”

“Cannot,” the crawler trembled. “The passages of the Maker under Kurash Qwellinir are guarded. Kurash Qwellinir itself is a maze. The fires of Gorak Krembal ward the Maker-place. His halls swarm with malice and servants. We have heard. The Maker has no secret.”

“Yet you aided us.” The Giant’s tone was thoughtful. “You have dared the Maker’s rage. You did not do this for any small reason.”

“That is true.” The speaker seemed afraid of what Foamfollower might say next.

“Surely there are other aids which you can give.”

“Yes-yes. Of Gorak Krembal we do not speak-there is nothing. But we know the ways of Kurash Qwellinir. And-and in the Maker-place also-there is something. But- ” The speaker faltered, fell silent.

“But,” Foamfollower said steadily, “such aid is not the reason for the aid you have already given. I am not deaf or blind, jheherrin. Some other cause has led you to this peril.”

“The legend-” gulped the speaker, then slithered away to confer with the creatures behind it. An intensely whispered argument followed, during which Covenant tried to calm his sense of impending crisis. For some obscure reason, he hoped that the creatures would refuse to speak of their legend. But when the crawler returned to them, Foamfollower said deliberately, “Tell us.”

A silence of dread echoed in the cavern, and when the speaker replied fearfully, “We will,” a chorus of shrieks pierced the air. Several score of the jheherrin fled, unable to bear the risk. “We must. There is no other way.”

The crawler approached a few feet, then slumped wetly on the floor, gasping as if it could not breathe. But after a moment, it lifted up its quavering voice and began to sing. The song was in an alien tongue that Covenant did not comprehend, and its pitches were made so uncertain by fear that he could not discern the melody. Yet-more in the way the jheherrin listened than in the song itself-he sensed something of its potency, its attractiveness for the creatures. Without understanding anything about it, he was moved.

It was a short song, as if long ages of grim or abject use had reduced it to its barest bones. When it was done, the speaker said weakly, “The legend. The one hope of the jheherrin- the sole part of our lives that is not Maker-work, the sole purpose. It tells that the distant forebears of the jheherrin, the un-Maker-made, were themselves Makers. But they were not seedless as he is-as we are. They were not driven to breed upon the flesh of others. From their bodies came forth young who grew and in turn made young. Thus the world was constantly renewed, in firmness and replenishment. Such things cannot be imagined.

“But the Makers were flawed. Some were weak, some blind, others incautious. Among them the Maker was born, seedless and bitter, and they did not see or fear what they had done. Thus they fell into his power. He captured them and took them to the deep fastnesses of his home, and used them to begin the work of forming armies.

“We are the last vestige of these flawed un-Maker-made. Their last life is preserved in us. In punishment for their flaws, we are doomed to crawl the combs in misery and watchfulness and eternal fear. Mud is our sun and blood and being, our flesh and home. Fear is our heritage, for the Maker could bring us to an end with one word, living as we do in the very shadow of his home. But we are watchful in the name of our one hope. For it is said that some un-Maker-made are still free of the Maker-that they still bring forth young from their bodies. It is said that when the time is ready, a young will be birthed without flaw-a pure offspring impervious to the Maker and his making-unafraid. It is said that this pure one will come bearing tokens of power to the Maker’s home. It is said that he will redeem the jheherrin if they prove-if he finds them worthy-that he will win from the Maker their release from fear and mud-if- if- ” The crawler could not go on. Its voice stumbled into silence, left the cavern aching for a reply to fill the void of its misery.

But Covenant could not bend without breaking. He felt all the attention of the jheherrin focused on him. He could feel them voicelessly asking him, imploring, Are you the pure one? If we help you, will you free us? But he could not give them the answer they wanted. Their living death deserved the truth from him, not a false hope.

Deliberately, he sacrificed their help. His voice was harsh; he sounded angry as he said, “Look at me. You know the answer. Under all this mud, I’m sick-diseased. And I’ve done things-I’m not pure. I’m corrupt.”

One last pulse of silence met his denial-one still moment while the intent, tremulous hope around him shattered. Then a shrill wail of despair tore through the multitude of the jheherrin. All the light vanished at once. Shrieking in darkness like desolated ghouls, the creatures ran.

Foamfollower caught hold of Covenant to protect him against an attack. But the jheherrin did not attack; they fled. The sound of their movement rushed through the cavern like a loud wind of loss, and died away. Soon the silence returned, fell limp at the feet of Covenant and Foamfollower like empty cerements, the remains of a violated grave.

Covenant’s chest shook with dry spasms like sobs, but he clenched himself into union with the silence. He could not bend; he would break if the rictus of his determination were forced to bend. Foul! he jerked. Foul! You’re too cruel.

He felt the attempted consolation of the Giant’s hand on his shoulder. He wanted to respond, wanted to utter in some way the violence of his resolve. But before he could speak, the silence seemed to flow and concentrate itself into the sound of soft weeping.

The sound grew on him as he listened. Forlorn and miserable, it rose up into the darkness like irremediable grief, made the hollow air throb. He yearned to go to the weeper, yearned to comfort it in some way. But when he moved, it found words to halt him, desolate accusation. “Despair is Maker-work.”

“Forgive me,” Covenant groaned. “How could I lie to you?” He searched for the right reply, then said on intuition, “But the legend hasn’t changed. I haven’t touched the legend. I don’t deny your worth. You are worthy. I’m just-not the pure one. He hasn’t come yet. I don’t have anything to do with your hope.”

The weeper did not answer. Its sobs ached on in the air; having started, its old unanodyned misery could not stop. But after a moment it brought up a glimmer of rocklight. Covenant saw that it was the crawler who had spoken for the jheherrin.

“Come,” it wept. “Come.” Shaking with sorrow, it turned and crept out of the cavern.

Covenant and the Giant followed without hesitation. In the presence of the creature’s grief, they silently accepted whatever it intended for them.

It led them back into the combs-away from their earlier route, upward through a complex chain of tunnels. Soon the rock walls had become cold again, and the air began to smell faintly of brimstone. A short time later-little more than half a league from the cavern-their guide halted.

They kept themselves a respectful distance from the creature and waited while it tried to control its sobs. Its dim, rocklit struggle was painful to watch, but they contained their own emotions, waited. Covenant was prepared to allow the creature any amount of time. Patience seemed to be the only thing he could offer the jheherrin.

It did not keep them waiting long. Forcing down its grief, it said thickly, “This tunnel-it ends in Kurash Qwellinir. At every turn choose-the way toward the fire. You must pass a passage of the Maker. It will be guarded. Beyond it take each turn away from the fire. You will find Gorak Krembal. You cannot cross-you must cross it. Beyond it is the rock of the Maker-place.

“Its mouth is guarded, but has no gate. Within it swarms-But there are secret ways-the Maker has secret ways, which his servants do not use. Within the mouth is a door. You cannot see it. You must find it. Press once upon the centre of the lintel. You will find many ways and hiding places.”

The crawler turned and began to shuffle back down the tunnel. Its light flickered and went out, leaving Covenant and Foamfollower in darkness. Out of the distance of the hollow comb, the creature moaned, “Try to believe that you are pure.” Then the sound of its grief faded, and it was gone.

After a long moment of silence, Foamfollower touched Covenant’s shoulder. “My friend-did you hear it well? It has given us precious aid. Do you remember all it said?”

Covenant heard something final in the Giant’s tone. But he was too preoccupied with the bitter rictus of his own intent to ask what that tone signified. “You remember it,” he breathed stiffly. “I’m counting on you. You just get me there.”

“My friend-Unbeliever,” the Giant began dimly, then stopped, let drop whatever he had been about to say. “Come, then.” He steered Covenant by the shoulder. “We will do what we can.”

They climbed on up the tunnel. It made two sharp turns and began to ascend steeply, narrowing as it rose. Soon Covenant was forced to his hands and knees by the angle of the cold stone slope. With Foamfollower breathing close behind him, helping him with an occasional shove, he pulled and scraped upward, kept on scrambling while the rock grew more and more constricted.

Then the tunnel ended in a blank wall. Covenant searched around with his numb hands. He found no openings-but he could not touch the ceiling. When he looked upward, he saw a faint window of red light out of reach above his head.

By pressing against each other, he and Foamfollower were able to stand in the end of the tunnel. The dim opening was within the stretch of Foamfollower’s arms. Carefully, he lifted Covenant, boosted him through the window.

Covenant climbed into a vertical slit in the rock. Crawling along its floor, he went forward and looked out around its edges into what appeared to be a short, roofless corridor. Its walls were sheer stone, scores of feet high. It looked as if it had been rough-adzed out of raw, black, igneous rock-a passage leading senselessly from one blank wall to another. But as his eyes adjusted to the light, he discerned intersections at both ends of the corridor.

The light came from the night sky. Along one rim of the walls was a dull red glow-the shine of a fire in the distance. The air was acrid and sulphurous; if it had not been cold, Covenant would have guessed that he was already near Hotash Slay.

When he was sure that the corridor was empty, he called softly to Foamfollower. With a leap, the Giant thrust his head and shoulders through the opening into the slit, then squirmed up the rest of the way. In a moment, he was at Covenant’s side.

“This is Kurash Qwellinir,” he whispered as he looked around, “the Shattered Hills. If I have not lost all my reckoning, we are far from the passage which Bannor taught us. Without the aid of the jheherrin, we would be hard pressed to find our way.” Then he motioned for Covenant to follow him. “Stay at my back. If we are discovered, I must know where you are.”

Gliding forward as smoothly as if he were rested and eager for stealth, he started toward the fiery glow, and Covenant limped along behind him on bare numb feet. Near the end of the corridor, they pressed themselves cautiously against one wall. Covenant held his breath while Foamfollower peered around the corner. An instant later, the Giant signalled. They both hurried into the next passage, taking the turn toward the red sky-shine.

This second corridor was longer than the first. The ones beyond it were crooked, curved; they reversed directions, twisted back on themselves, writhed their way through the black, rough rock like tormented snakes. Covenant soon lost all sense of progress. Without the instructions of the jheherrin, he would have attempted to recover lost ground, correct apparent errors. Once again, he realized how much his survival had from the beginning depended on other people. Atiaran, Elena, Lena, Banner, Triock, Mhoram, the jheherrin- he would have arrived nowhere, done nothing, without them. In return for his brutality, his raging and incondign improvidence, they had kept him alive, given him purpose. And now he was wholly dependent upon Saltheart Foamfollower.

It was not a good omen for a leper.

He trudged on under the aegis of dolorous portents. His wound felt like a weight under which he could no longer lift up his head; the brimstone air seemed to sap the strength from his lungs. In time he began to feel numb and affectless, as if he were wandering in confusion.

Yet he noticed the increase of light near a sharp turn in one corridor. The brightening was brief-it opened and shut like a door-but it plunged him into alertness. He dogged the Giant’s feet like a shadow as they approached the corner.

They heard guttural voices from beyond the turn. Covenant flinched at the thought of pursuit, then steadied himself. The voices lacked the urgency or stealth of hunting.

Foamfollower put his head to the corner, and Covenant crouched under him to look as well.

Beyond it, the corridor opened into a wide area faintly lit by two small stones of rocklight, one near each entrance to the open space. Against the far wall midway between the two stones stood a dark band of half-human creatures. Covenant counted ten of them. They held spears and stood in relaxed or weary postures, talking to each other in low rough voices. Then five of them turned to the wall behind them. A section of the stone opened, letting out a stream of red light. Covenant glimpsed a deep tunnel behind the opening. The five creatures passed through the entrance and closed the stone behind them. The door closed so snugly that no crack or gleam of light revealed the tunnel’s existence.

“Changing the watch,” Foamfollower breathed. “We are fortunate that the light warned us.”

With the door closed, the guards placed themselves against the darkness of the wall where they were nearly invisible, and fell silent.

Covenant and Foamfollower backed a short distance away from the corner. Covenant felt torn; he could not think of any way past the guards, yet in his fatigue he dreaded the prospect of hunting through the maze for another passage. But Foamfollower showed no hesitation. He put his mouth to Covenant’s ear and whispered grimly, “Stay hidden. When I call, cross this open space and turn away from Hotash Slay. Wait for me beyond one turn.”

Trepidation beat in Covenant’s head. “What are you going to do?”

The Giant grinned. But his mud-dark face held no humour, and his eyes glinted hungrily. “I think I will strike a blow or two against these Maker-work creatures.” Before Covenant could respond, he returned to the corner.

With both hands, Foamfollower searched the wall until he found a protruding lump of stone. His great muscles strained momentarily, and the lump came loose in his hands.

He sighted for an instant past the turn, then lofted the stone. It landed with a loud clatter in the far corridor.

One guard snapped a command to the others. Gripping their spears, they started toward the noise.

Foamfollower gave them a moment in which to move. Then he launched himself at them.

Covenant jumped to the corner, saw Foamfollower charge the guards. They were looking the other way. Foamfollower’s long legs crossed the distance in half a dozen silent strides. They only caught a glimpse of him before he fell on them like the side of a mountain.

They were large, powerful fighters. But he was a Giant. He dwarfed them. And he took them by surprise. One blow, two, three-in instant succession, he crushed three of them, skull or chest, and sprang at the fourth.

The creature dodged backward, tried to use its spear. Foamfollower tore the spear from its hands and broke the guard’s head with one slap of the shaft.

But that took an instant too long; it allowed the fifth guard to reach the entrance of the tunnel. The door sprang open. Light flared. The guard disappeared down the bright stone throat.

Foamfollower wheeled to the opening. In his right hand, he balanced the spear. It looked hardly larger than an arrow in his fist, but he cocked it over his shoulder like a javelin, and flung it at the fleeing guard.

A strangled shout of pain echoed from the tunnel.

The Giant whirled toward Covenant. “Now!” he barked. “Run!”

Covenant started forward, impelled by the Giant’s urgency; but he could not run, could not force his limbs to move that fast. His friend transfixed him. Foamfollower stood in the vivid rocklight with blood on his hands, and he was grinning. Savage delight corrupted his bluff features; glee flashed redly from the caves of his eyes.

“Foamfollower?” Covenant whispered as if the name hurt his throat. “Giant?”

“Go!” the Giant shouted, then turned back to the tunnel. With one sweep of his arm, he slammed the stone door shut.

Covenant stood blinking in the relative darkness and watched as Foamfollower snatched up the three remaining spears, took them to the doorway, then broke them in pieces and jammed the pieces into the cracks of the door to wedge it shut.

When he was done, he started away from the wall. Only then did he realize that Covenant had not obeyed him. At once, he pounced on the Unbeliever, caught him by the arm. “Fool!” he snapped, swinging Covenant toward the far passage. “Do you mock me?” But his hand was slick with blood. He lost his hold, accidentally sent Covenant reeling to jolt heavily against the stone.

Covenant slumped down the wall, gasping to regain his breath. “Foamfollower-what’s happened to you?”

Foamfollower reached him, gripped his shoulders, shook him. “Do not mock me. I do such things for you!”

“Don’t do them for me,” Covenant protested. “You’re not doing them for me.”

With a snarl, the Giant picked up Covenant. “You are a fool if you believe we can survive in any other way.” Carrying the Unbeliever under his arm like an obdurate child, he loped into the maze toward Hotash Slay.

Now he turned away from the fiery sky-glow at every intersection. Covenant flopped in his grasp, demanding to be put down; but Foamfollower did not accede until he had put three turns and as many switchbacks behind him. Then he stopped and set Covenant on his feet.

Covenant staggered, regained his balance. He wanted to shout at the Giant, rage at him, demand explanations. But no words came. In spite of himself, he understood Saltheart Foamfollower. The last of the Unhomed had struck blows which could not be called back or stopped; Covenant could not pretend that he did not understand. Yet his heart cried out. He needed some other answer to his own extremity.

A moment passed before he heard the sound that consumed Foamfollower’ s attention. But then he caught it-a distant, reiterated boom like the impact of a battering ram on stone. He guessed what it was; the Despiser’s creatures were trying to break out of their tunnel into the maze. An instant later, he heard a sharp, splintering noise and shouts.

The Giant put a hand on his shoulder. “Come.”

Covenant broke into a run to keep pace with Foamfollower’s trot. Together, they hurried through the corridors.

They discarded all caution now, made no attempt to protect themselves from what might lie ahead. At every junction of the maze, they swung away from the mounting red glow, and in every curve and switchback of the corridors, they moved closer to the fire, deeper into the thick, acrid atmosphere of Gorak Krembal. Covenant felt heat in the air now, a dry, stifling heat like the windless scorching of a desert. As it grew, it sent rivulets of sweat running down his back. He panted hoarsely on the air, stumbled across the rough rock, kept running. At odd intervals, he could hear shouts of pursuit echoing over the walls of Kurash Qwellinir.

Whenever he tripped, the Giant picked him up and carried him a short way. This happened more and more often. His fatigue and inanition affected him like vertigo. In his falls, he battered himself until he felt benumbed with bruises from head to foot.

When he reached it, the change was so sudden that it almost flattened him. One moment he was lurching through a blind series of corridors, the next he was out on the shores of Hotash Slay.

He slapped into the heat and light of the lava and stopped. The Hills ended sharply; he found himself on a beach of dead ash ten yards from a moiling red river of molten stone.

Under the blank dome of night, Hotash Slay curved away from him out of sight on both sides. It bubbled and seethed, sent up flaring spouts of lava and brimstone into the air, swirled as if it were boiling where it stood rather than flowing. Yet it made no sound; it hit Covenant’s ears silently, as if he had been stricken deaf. He felt that the flesh was being scorched from his bones, felt that he was suffocating on hot sulphur, but the lava seethed weirdly across his gaze as if it were inaudible-a nightmare manifestation, impossibly vivid and unreal.

At first, it dominated his sight, stretched from this ashen shore to the farthest limit of any horizon. But when he blinked back the damp heat-blur from his eyes, he saw that the lava was less than fifty yards wide. Beyond 11, he could make out nothing but a narrow marge of ash. The hot red light cast everything else into darkness, made the night on the far side look as black and abysmal as the open throat of hell.

He groaned at that prospect, at the thought of Foul’s Creche standing murderous and hidden beyond this impassable fire. Here all his purpose and pain came to nothing. Hotash Slay could not be crossed. Then a burst of echoed yelps jerked him around. He expected to see creatures pouring out of the maze.

The sound died again as the pursuit charged into less resonant corridors. But it could not be far behind them. “Foamfollower!” Covenant cried, and his voice cracked with fear despite his efforts to control it. “What do we do?”

“Listen to me!” Foamfollower said. A fever of urgency was on him. “We must cross now-before we are seen. If you are seen-if Soulcrusher knows that you have crossed-he will hunt for you on the far side. He will capture you.”

“Cross?” Covenant gaped. “Me?”

“If we are not seen, he will not guess what we have done. He will judge that you are elsewhere in the maze-he will hunt you there, not on the promontory of Ridjeck Thome.”

“Cross that? Are you crazy? What do you think I am?” He could not believe what he was hearing. In the past, he had assumed that he and Foamfollower would somehow get beyond Hotash Slay, but he had made that assumption because he had not visualized this moat of lava around Foul’s dwelling place, had not conceived the true immensity of the obstacle. Now he saw his folly. He felt that if he went two steps closer to the lava, his skin would begin to char.

“No,” replied Foamfollower. His voice was full of fatality. “I have striven to prepare myself. It may be that in doing this I will anneal the long harm of my life before I die. My friend, I will bear you across.”

At once, he lifted Covenant into the air, placed him sitting upon his broad shoulders.

“Put me down!” Covenant protested. “What the hell are you doing?”

The Giant swung around to face the fiery liquefaction of the stone. “Do not breathe!” he barked fiercely. “My strength will help you to endure the heat, but it will sear your lungs if you breathe!”

“Damnation, Giant! Put me down! You’re going to kill us!”

“I am the last of the Giants,” Foamfollower grated. “I will give my life as I choose.”

Before Covenant could say another word, Foamfollower sprinted down the ashen beach toward the lava of Hotash Slay.

From the last edge of the shore, he leaped mightily out over the molten stone. As his feet touched the lava, he began to run with all his great Giantish strength toward the far shore.

The swift blast of heat almost snuffed out Covenant’s consciousness. He heard a distant wailing, but moments passed before he realized that it came from his throat. The fire blinded him, wiped everything but red violence out of his sight. It tore at him as if it were flailing the flesh from his bones.

But it did not kill him. Endurance flowed into him from the Giant. And his ring ached on his half hand as if it were absorbing his torment, easing the strain on his flesh.

He could feel Foamfollower sinking under him. The lava was thicker than mud or quicksand, but with each stride the Giant fell deeper into it. By the time his long surging strides had covered half the distance, he was in over his thighs. Yet he did not falter. Agony shot up through his shoulders at Covenant. Still he thrust himself forward, stretching every sinew past all limits in his effort to reach the far bank.

Covenant stopped wailing to hold his breath, though Foamfollower’s pain seemed to burn him worse than the heat of the lava. He tried to grasp the white gold with his mind, pull strength from it to aid the Giant. But he could not tell whether or not he succeeded. The red fire blinded his perceptions. In another two strides, Foamfollower had sunk to his waist. He gripped Covenant’s ankles, boosted him up so that the Unbeliever was standing on his shoulders. Covenant wavered on that heaving perch, but Foamfollower’s hold on his ankles was as strong as iron, kept him erect.

Two more strides-the lava reached Foamfollower’s chest. He mastered his pain for one instant to gasp out over the silent fire, “Remember the jheherrin!” Then he began to howl, driven beyond his endurance by red molten agony.

Covenant could see nothing, did not know how far they had come. Reeling over the lava, he held his breath, kept himself from joining Foamfollower’s terrible scream. The Giant went on, propelled himself with his tortured legs as if he were treading water.

But finally he floundered to a stop. The weight and pain of the lava halted him. He could not wade any farther.

With one last, horrific exertion, he thrust himself upward, reared back, concentrated all his strength in his shoulders. Heaving so hard that he seemed to tear his arms from their sockets, he hurled Covenant toward the bank.

Covenant arched through the blazing light for an instant, clenched himself against the sudden pain of incineration.

He landed on dead cinders five feet from the edge of Hotash Slay. The ashes crunched under him, gave slightly, absorbed some of the impact. Gasping for breath, he rolled, staggered to his knees. He could not see; he was blind with tears. He gouged water out of his eyes with numb fingers, blinked furiously, forced his vision into focus.

Ten or more yards out in the lava, he saw one of Foamfollower’s hands still above the surface. It clenched uselessly for a moment, trying to find a grip on the brimstone air. Then it followed the Giant into the molten depths.

Foamfollower! Covenant cried soundlessly. He could not find enough air to scream aloud. Foamfollower!

The heat beat back at him furiously. And through the pounding blaze came dim shouts-the approaching clamour of pursuit.

Before we are seen, Covenant remembered dumbly. Foamfollower had done this for him so that he would not be seen-so that Foul would not know that he had crossed Hotash Slay. He wanted to kneel where he was until he dissolved in heat and grief, but he stumbled to his feet.

Foamfollower! My friend!

Lumbering stiffly, he turned his back on the lava as if it were the grave of all his victims, and moved away into darkness.

After a short distance, he crossed a low, barren ridge, fell into the shallow gully beyond it. At once, a landfall of weariness buried him, and he abandoned himself to sleep. For a long time, he lay in his own night, dreaming of impossible sunlight.