The Power That Preserves

Nineteen: Ridjeck Thome

HE awoke with the acrid taste of brimstone in his mouth, and ashes in his heart. At first, he could not remember where he was; he could not identify the ruined ground on which he lay, or the rasp of sulphur in his throat, or the sunless sky; he could not recollect the cause of his loneliness. How could anyone be so alone and still go on breathing? But after a time he began to notice a smell of sweat and disease under the brimstone. Sweat, he murmured. Leprosy. He remembered.

Frailly, he levered himself into a sitting position in the gully, then leaned his back against one crumbling wall and tried to grasp his situation.

His thoughts hung in tatters from the spars of his mind, shredded by a sale of inanition and loss. He knew that he was starving. That’s right, he said to himself. That’s the way it was. His feet were battered, scored with cuts, and his forehead hurt as if a spike had been driven through his skull. He nodded in recognition. That’s right. That’s the way it was. But his dirty skin was not burned, and his mud-stained robe showed no signs of heat damage. For a while, he sat without moving, arid tried to understand why he was still alive.

Foamfollower must have saved him from the heat by exerting power through him, in the same way that the Giants propelled boats by exerting power through Gildenlode rudders. He shook his head at Foamfollower’s valour. He did not know how he could go on without the help of a friend.

Yet he shed no tears over the Giant. He felt barren of tears. He was a leper and had no business with joy or grief. None, he claimed flatly. The crisis at the Colossus had taken him beyond himself, drawn responses from him which he did not properly possess. Now he felt that he had returned to his essential numbness, regained the defining touchstone of his existence. He was done pretending to be anything more than what he was.

But his work was not done. He needed to go on, to confront the Despiser-to complete, if he could, the purpose which had brought him here. All the conditions of his release from the Land had not yet been fulfilled. For good or ill, he would have to bring Lord Foul’s quest for white gold to an end.

And he would have to do it as Bannor and Foamfollower would have done it-dispassionately and passionately, fighting and refusing to fight, both at once-because he had learned one more reason why he would have to seek out the Despiser. Surrounded in his mind by all his victims, he found that there was only one good answer still open to him.

That answer was a victory over Despite.

Only by defeating Lord Foul could he give meaning to all the lives which had been spent in his name, and at the same time preserve himself, the irremediable fact of who he was.

Thomas Covenant: Unbeliever. Leper.

Deliberately, he looked at his ring. It hung loosely on his emaciated finger-dull, argent, and intractable. He groaned, and started to wrestle himself to his feet.

He did not know why he was still in the Land after Foamfollower’s death-and did not care. Probably the explanation lay somewhere in the breaking of the Law of Death. The Despiser could do anything. Covenant was prepared to believe that in Lord Foul’s demesne all the former Law of the Earth had been abrogated.

He began to make his way up the far side of the gully. He had no preparations to make, no supplies or plans or resources to get ready-no reason why he should not simply begin his task. And the longer he delayed, the weaker he would become.

As he neared the crest of the hill, he raised his head to look around.

There he got his first sight of Foul’s Creche.

It stood perhaps half a league away across a cracked, bare lowland of dead soil and rock, a place which had lain wrecked and riven for so long that it had forgotten even the possibility of life. From the vantage of the hill-the last elevation between him and Foul’s Creche-he could see that he was at the base of Ridjeck Thome’s promontory. Several hundred yards away from him on either side, the ground fell off in sheer cliffs which drew closer to each other as they jutted outward until they met at the tip of the promontory. In the distance, he heard waves thundering against the cliffs, and far beyond the lips of the wedge he could see the dark, grey-green waters of the Sea.

But he gave little attention to the landscape. His eyes were drawn by the magnet of the Creche itself. He had guessed from what he had heard that most of Lord Foul’s home lay underground, and now he saw that this must be true. The promontory rose to a high pile of rock at its tip, and there the Creche stood. Two matched towers, as tall and slender as minarets, rose several hundred feet into the air, and between them at ground level was the dark open hole of the single entrance. Nothing else of the Despiser’s abode was visible. From windows atop the towers, Lord Foul or his guards could look outward beyond the promontory, beyond Hotash Slay, beyond even the Shattered Hills, but the rest of his demesne-his breeding dens, storehouses, power works, barracks, thronehall-had to be underground, delved into the rock, accessible only through that one mouth and the tunnels hidden among Kurash Qwellinir.

Covenant stared across the promontory; and the dark windows of the towers gaped blindly back at him like soulless eyes, hollow and abhorred. At first, he was simply transfixed by the sight, stunned to find himself so close to such a destination. But when that emotion faded, he began to wonder how he could reach the Creche without being spotted by sentries. He did not believe that the towers would be as empty as they appeared. Surely the Despiser would not leave any approach unwatched. And if he waited for dark to conceal him, he might fall off a cliff or into one of the cracks.

He considered the problem for some time without finding any answer. But at last he decided that he would have to take his chances. They were no more impossible than they had ever been. And the ground he had to cross was blasted and rough, scarred with slag pits, ash heaps, crevices; he would be able to find cover for much of the distance.

He began by returning to the gully and following it south until it began to veer down toward the cliff. He could hear and see the ocean clearly now, though the lava’s brimstone still overwhelmed any smell of salt in the air; but he took notice of it only to avoid the danger of the cliff. From there he climbed the hill again, and peered over it to study the nearby terrain.

To his relief, he saw more gullies. From the base of the hill, they ran like a web of erosion scars over that part of the lowland. If he could get into them without being seen, he would be safe for some distance.

He congratulated himself grimly on the filthiness of his robe, which blended well into the ruined colours of the ground. For a moment, he gathered his courage, steadied himself. Then he sprinted, tumbled down the last slope, rolled into the nearest gully.

It was too shallow to allow him to move erect, but by alternately crawling and crouching, he was able to work his way into the web. After that, he made better progress.

But beyond the heat of Hotash Slay, the air turned cold and wet like an exhalation from a dank crypt; it soaked into him despite his robe, made his sweat hurt like ice on his skin, drained his scant energies. The ground was hard, and when he crawled, his knees felt muffled ill beating up through the rock. Hunger ached precipitously within him. But he drove himself onward.

Beyond the gullies, he moved more swiftly for a time by limping between slag pits and ash heaps. But after that he came to a flat, shelterless stretch riddled with cracks and crevices. Through some he could hear the crashing of the Sea; from others came rank blasts of air, ventilation for the Creche. He had to scuttle unprotected across the flat, now running between wide gaps in the ground, now throwing himself in dizzy fear over cracks across his path. When at last he reached the foot of the rugged, upraised rock which led to the towers, he dropped into the shelter of a boulder and lay there, gasping, shivering in the damp cold, dreading the sound of guards.

But he heard no alarms, no shout or rush of pursuit-nothing but his own hoarse respiration, the febrile pulse of his blood, the pounding of the waves. Either he had not been seen or the guards were preparing to ambush him. He mustered the vestiges of his strength and began to clamber up through the rocks.

As he climbed, he grew faint. Weakness like vertigo filled his head made his numb hands powerless to grasp, his legs powerless to thrust. Yet he went on. Time and again, he stopped with his heart lurching because he had heard-or thought he had heard-some clink of rock or rustle of apparel which said that he was being stalked. Still he forced himself to continue. Dizzy, weak, alone, trembling, vulnerable-he was engaged in a struggle that he could understand. He had come too far for any kind of surrender.

Now he was so high that he could seldom hide completely from the towers. But the angle was an awkward one for any guards that might have been at the windows. So as he gasped and scraped up the last ascents, he worried less about concealment. He needed all his attention, energy, just to move his hands and feet, lift his body upward, upward.

At last he neared the top. Peering through a gap between two boulders, he caught his first close look at the mouth of Foul’s Creche.

It was smooth and symmetrical, unadorned, perfectly made. The round opening stood in a massive abutment of wrought stone-a honed and polished fortification which cupped the entrance as if it led to a sacred crypt. Its sheen echoed the clouded sky exactly, reflected the immaculate grey image of the parapets.

One figure as tall as a Giant stood before the cave. It had three heads, three sets of eyes so that it could watch in all directions, three brawny legs forming a tripod to give it stability. Its three arms were poised in constant readiness. Each held a gleaming broadsword, each was protected with heavy leather bands. A long leather buckler girded its torso. At first, Covenant saw no movement to indicate that the figure was alive. But then it blinked, drew his attention to its fetid yellow eyes. They roamed the hilltop constantly, searching for foes. When they flicked across the gap through which he peered, he recoiled as if he had been discovered.

But if the figure saw him, it gave no sign. After a moment, he calmed his apprehension. The warder was not placed to watch any part of the promontory except the last approaches to the cave; virtually all his trek from Hotash Slay had been out of the figure’s line of sight. So he was safe where he crouched. But if he wanted to enter Foul’s Creche, he would have to pass that warder.

He had no idea how to do so. He could not fight the creature. He could not think of any way to trick it. And the longer he waited for some kind of inspiration, the larger his fear and weakness became.

Rather than remain where he was until he paralyzed himself, he squirmed on his belly up through the boulders to the fortification on one side of the entrance. Hiding behind the parapet almost directly below and between the twin towers, he clenched himself to quiet his breathing, and tried to muster his courage for the only approach he could conceive-drop over the parapet into the entry way and try to outrun the warder. He was so close to the figure now that he felt sure it could smell his sweat, hear the reel of his dizziness and the labour of his heart.

Yet he could not move. He felt utterly exposed to the towers, though he was out of sight of the windows; yet he could not make himself move. He was afraid. Once he showed himself-once the warder saw him-Foul’s Creche would be warned. All Foamfollower’s effort and sacrifice, all the aid of the jheherrin, would be undone in an instant. He would be alone against the full defences of Ridjeck Thome.

Damnation! he panted to himself. Come on, Covenant! You’re a leper-you ought to be used to this by now.

Foul’s Creche was a big place. If he could get past the warder, he might be able to avoid capture for a while, might even be able to find the secret door of which the jheherrin had spoken. This if was no greater than any other. He was trapped between mortal inadequacy and irrefusable need; he had long ago lost the capacity to count costs, measure chances.

He braced his hands on the stone, breathed deeply for a moment.

Before he could move, something crashed into him, slammed him down. He struggled, but a grip as hard as iron locked his arms behind his back. Weight pinned his legs. In fury and fear, he tried to yell. A hand clamped over his face.

He was helpless. His attacker could have broken his back with one swift wrench. But the hands only held him still-asserting their mastery over him, waiting for him to relax, submit.

With an effort, he forced his muscles to unclench.

The hand did not uncover his mouth, but he was suddenly flipped onto his back.

He found himself looking up into the warm, clean face of Saltheart Foamfollower.

The Giant made a silencing gesture, then released him.

At once, Covenant flung his arms around Foamfollower’s neck, hugged him, clung to his strong neck like a child. A joy like sunrise washed the darkness out of him, lifted him up into hope as if it were the pure, clear dawn of a new day.

Foamfollower returned the embrace for a moment, then disentangled!t and moved stealthily away. Covenant followed, though his eyes were so full of tears that he could hardly see where he was going. The Giant led him from the abutment to the far side of one of the towers. There they were hidden from the warder, and the rumble of the waves covered their voices. Grinning happily, Foamfollower whispered, “Please pardon me. I hope I have not harmed you. I have been watching for you, but did not see you. When you gained the parapet, I could not call without alerting that Foul-spawn. And I feared that in your surprise, you might betray your presence.”

Covenant blinked back his tears. His voice shook with joy and relief as he said, “Pardon you? You scared me witless.”

Foamfollower chuckled softly, hardly able to contain his own pleasure. “Ah, my friend, I am greatly glad to see you once again. I feared I had lost you in Hotash Slay-feared you had been taken prisoner-feared- ah! I had a host of fears.”

“I thought you were dead.” Covenant sobbed once, then caught hold of himself, steadied himself. Brusquely, he wiped his eyes so that he could look at the Giant.

Foamfollower appeared beautifully healthy. He was naked-he had lost his raiment in the fires of the Slay-and from head to foot his flesh was clean and well. The former extremity of his gaze had been replaced by something haler, something serene; his eyes gleamed with laughter out of their cavernous sockets. The alabaster strength of his limbs looked as solid as marble; and except for a few recent scrapes received while scrambling from Hotash Slay to the Creche, even his old battle-scars were gone, effaced by a fire which seemed to have refined him down to the marrow of his bones. Nothing about him showed that he had been through agony.

Yet Covenant received an impression of agony, of a transcending pain which had fundamentally altered the Giant. Somehow in Hotash Slay, Foamfollower had carried his most terrible passions through to their apocalypse.

Covenant steadied himself with sea air, and repeated, “I thought you were dead.”

The Giant’s happiness did not falter. “As did I. This outcome is an amazement to me, just as it is to you. Stone and Sea! I would have sworn that I would die. Covenant, the Despiser can never triumph entirely over a world in which such things occur.”

That’s true, Covenant said to himself. In that kind of world. Aloud, he asked, “But how-how did you do it? What happened?”

“I am not altogether certain. My friend, I think you have not forgotten the Giantish caamora, the ritual fire of grief. Giantish flesh is not harmed by ordinary fire. The pain purges, but does not burn. In that way the Unhomed from time to time found relief from the extravagance of their hearts.

“In addition-it will surprise you to hear that I believe your wild magic succoured me in some degree. Before I threw you from my shoulders, j felt — some power sharing strength with me, just as I shared strength with you.”

“Hellfire.” Covenant gaped at the blind argent band on his finger.

Hellfire and bloody damnation. Again he remembered Mhoram’s assertion, You are the white gold. But still he could not grasp what the High Lord had meant.

“And-in addition,” the Giant continued, “there are mysteries alive in the Earth of which Lord Foul, Satansheart and Soulcrusher, does not dream. The Earthpower which spoke to befriend Berek Halfhand is not silent now. It speaks another tongue, perhaps-perhaps its ways have been forgotten by the people who live upon the Earth-but it is not quenched. The Earth could not exist if it did not contain good to match such banes as the Illearth Stone.”

“Maybe,” Covenant mused. He hardly heard himself. The thought of his ring had triggered an entirely different series of ideas in him. He did not want to recognize them, hated to speak of them, but after a moment he forced himself to say, “Are you-are you sure you haven’t been-resurrected- like Elena?”

A look of laughter brightened the Giant’s face. “Stone and Sea! That has the sound of the Unbeliever in it.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, my friend,” Foamfollower chuckled, “I am not sure. I neither know nor care. I am only glad that I have been given one more chance to aid you.”

Covenant consumed Foamfollower’s answer, then found his response. He did his best to measure up to the Giant as he said, “Then let’s do something about it while we still can.”

” Yes.” Gravity slowly entered Foamfollower’s expression, but it did not lessen his aura of ebullience and pain. “We must. At our every delay, more lives are lost in the Land.”

“I hope you have a plan.” Covenant strove to repress his anxiety. “I don’t suppose that warder is just going to wave us through if we ask it nicely.”

“I have given some thought to the matter.” Carefully, Foamfollower outlined the results of his thinking.

Covenant considered for a moment, then said, “That’s all very well. But what if they know we’re coming? What if they’re waiting for us-inside there?”

The Giant shook his head, and explained that he had spent some time listening through the rock of the towers. He had heard nothing which would indicate an ambush, nothing to show that the towers were occupied at all. “Perhaps Soulcrusher truly does not believe that he can be approached in this way. Perhaps this warder is the only guard. We will soon know.”

“Yes, indeed,” Covenant muttered. “Only I hate surprises. You never know when one of them is going to ruin your life.”

Grimly, Foamfollower replied, “Perhaps now we will be able to return a measure of ruin to the miner.”

Covenant nodded. “I certainly hope so.”

Together, they crept back toward the entrance, then separated. Following the Giant’s instructions, Covenant worked his way down among the boulders and rubble, trying to get as close as he could to the front of the cave without being seen. He moved with extreme caution, took a circuitous route. When he was done, he was still at least forty yards from the abutment. The distance distressed him, but he could find no alternative. He was not trying to sneak past the warder; he only wanted to make it hesitate.

Come on, Covenant, he snarled. Get on with it. This is no place for cowards.

He took a deep breath, cursed himself once more as if this were his last chance, and stepped out of his hiding place.

At once, he felt the warder’s gaze spring at him, but he tried to ignore it, strove to pick his way up toward the cave with at least a semblance of nonchalance. Gripping his hands behind him, whistling tunelessly through his teeth, he walked forward as if he expected free admittance to Foul’s Creche.

He avoided the warder’s stare. That gaze felt hot enough to lay bare his purpose, expose him for what he was. It made his skin crawl with revulsion. But as he passed from the rubble onto the polished stone apron of the entry way, he forced himself to look into the figure’s face.

Involuntarily, he faltered, stopped whistling. The yellow ill of the warder’s gaze smote him with chagrin. Those eyes seemed to know him from skin to soul, seemed to know everything about him and hold everything they knew in the utterest contempt. For a fraction of an instant, he feared that this being was the Despiser himself. But he knew better. Like so many of the marauders, this creature was made of warped flesh-a victim of Lord Foul’s Stonework. And there was uncertainty in the way it held itself.

Feigning cockiness, he strode up the apron until he was almost within sword reach of the warder. There he stopped, deliberately scrutinized the figure for a moment. When he had surveyed it from head to foot, he met its powerful gaze again, and said with all the insolence he could muster, “Don’t tell Foul I’m here. I want to surprise him.”

As he said surprise him, he suddenly snatched his hands from behind his back. With his ring exposed on the index finger of his right hand, he lunged forward as if to attack the warder with a blast of wild magic.

The warder jumped into a defensive stance. For an instant, all three of its heads turned toward Covenant.

In that instant, Foamfollower came leaping over the abutment above the entrance to the Creche.

The warder was beyond his reach; but as he landed, he dove forward, rolled at it, swept its feet from under it. It went down in a whirl of limbs and blades.

At once, he straddled it. It was as large as he, perhaps stronger. It was armed. But he hammered it so mightily with his fists, pinned it so effectively with his body, that it could not defend itself. After he dealt it a huge two-fisted blow at the base of its necks, it went limp.

Quickly, he took one of its swords to behead it.

“Foamfollower!” Covenant protested.

Foamfollower thrust himself up from the unconscious figure, faced Covenant with the sword clenched in one fist.

“Don’t kill it.”

Panting slightly at his exertion, the Giant said, “It will alert the Creche against us when it recovers.” His expression was grim, but not savage.

“There’s been enough killing,” Covenant replied thickly. “I hate it.”

For a moment, Foamfollower held Covenant’s gaze. Then he threw back his head and began to laugh.

Covenant felt suddenly weak with gratitude. His knees almost buckled under him. ” That’ s better,” he mumbled in relief. Leaning against one wall of the entry, he rested while he treasured the Giant’s mirth.

Shortly, Foamfollower subsided. “Very well, my friend,” he said quietly. “The death of this creature would gain time for us-time in which we might work our work and then seek to escape. But escape has never been our purpose.” He dropped the sword across the prostrate warder. “If its unconsciousness allows us to reach our goal, we will have been well enough served. Let escape fend for itself.” He smiled wryly, then went on: “However, it is in my heart that I can make a better use of this buckler.”

Bending over the warder, he stripped off its garment, and used the leather to cover his own nakedness.

“You’re right,” Covenant sighed. He did not intend to escape. “But there’s no reason for you to get yourself killed. Just help me find that secret door-then get out of here.”

“Abandon you?” Foamfollower adjusted the ill-fitting buckler with an expression of distaste. “How could I leave this place? I will not attempt Hotash Slay again.”

“Jump into the Sea-swim away-I don’t know.” A sense of urgency mounted in him; they could not afford to spend time debating at the very portal of Foul’s Creche. “Just don’t make me responsible for you too.”

“On the contrary,” the Giant replied evenly, “it is I who am responsible for you. I am your summoner.”

Covenant winced. “I’m not worried about that.”

“Nor am I,” Foamfollower returned with a grin. “But I mislike this talk of abandonment. My friend-I am acquainted with such things.”

They regarded each other gravely; and in the Giant’s gaze Covenant saw as clearly as words that he could not take responsibility for his friend, could not make his friend’s decisions. He could only accept Foamfollower’s help and be grateful. He groaned in pain at the outcome he foresaw. “Then let’s go,” he said dismally. “I’m not going to last much longer.”

In answer, the Giant took his arm, supported him. Side by side, they turned toward the dark mouth of the cave.

Side by side, they penetrated the gloom of Foul’s Creche.

To their surprise, the darkness vanished as if they had passed through a veil of obscurity. Beyond it, they found themselves in the narrow end of an egg-shaped hall. It was coldly lit from end to end as if green sea-ice were aflame in its walls; the whole place seemed on the verge of bursting into frigid fire.

Involuntarily, they paused, stared about them. The hall’s symmetry and stonework were perfect. At its widest point, it opened into matched passages which led up to the towers, and the floor of its opposite end sank flawlessly down to form a wide, spiral stairway into the rock. Everywhere the stone stretched and met without seams, cracks, junctures; the hall was as smoothly carved, polished, and even, as unblemished by ornament, feature, error, as if the ideal conception of its creator had been rendered into immaculate stone without the interference of hands that slipped, minds that misunderstood. It was obviously not Giant-work; it lacked anything which might intrude on the absolute exaction of its shape, lacked the Giantish enthusiasm for detail. Instead, it seemed to surpass any kind of mortal craft. It was preternaturally perfect.

Covenant gaped at it. While Foamfollower tore himself away to begin searching the side walls for the door of which the jheherrin had spoken, Covenant moved out into the hall, wandered as if aimlessly toward the great stairway. There was old magic here, might treasured by hate and hunger; he could feel it in the ceremental light, in the sharp cold air, in the immaculate walls. This fiery, frigid place was Lord Foul’s home, seat and root of his power. The whole soulless demesne spoke of his suzerainty, his entire and inviolate rule. This empty hall alone made mere gnats and midges out of his enemies. Covenant remembered having heard it said that Foul would never be defeated while Ridjeck Thome still stood. He believed it.

When he reached the broad spiral of the stairway, he found that its open centre was like a great well, curving gradually back into the promontory as it descended. The stair itself was large enough to carry fifteen or twenty people abreast. Its circling drew his gaze down into the bright hole until he was leaning out from the edge to peer as far as he could; and its symmetry lent impetus to the surge of his vertigo, his irrational love and fear of falling.

But he had learned the secret of that dizziness and did not fall. His eyes searched the stairwell. And a moment later, he saw something which shook away his dangerous fascination.

Running soundlessly up out of the depths was a large band of ur-viles.

He pulled himself backward. “You better find it fast,” he called to Foamfollower. “They’re coming.”

Foamfollower did not interrupt his scrutiny of the walls. As he searched the stone with his hands and eyes, probed it for any sign of a concealed entrance, he muttered, “It is well hidden. I do not know how it is possible for stone to be so wrought. My people were not children in this craft, but they could not have dreamed such walls.”

“They had too many nightmares of their own,” gritted Covenant. “Find it! Those ur-viles are coming fast.” Remembering the creature that had caused his fall in the catacombs under Mount Thunder, he added, “They can smell white gold.”

“I am a Giant,” answered Foamfollower. “Stonework is in the very blood of my people. This doorway cannot be concealed from me.”

Then his hands found a section of the wall which felt hollow. Swiftly, he explored the section, measured its dimensions, though no sign of any door was visible in that immaculate wall.

When he had located the entrance as exactly as possible, he pressed once on the centre of its lintel.

Glimmering with green tracery, the lintel appeared in the blank wall. Doorposts spread down from it to the floor as if they had at that instant been created out of the rock, and between them the door swung noiselessly inward.

Foamfollower rubbed his hands in satisfaction. Chuckling, “As you commanded, ur-Lord,” he motioned for Covenant to precede him through the doorway.

Covenant glanced toward the stairs, then hastened into the small chamber beyond the door. Foamfollower came behind him, ducking for the lintel and the low ceiling of the chamber. At once, he closed the door, watched it dissolve back into featureless stone. Then he went ahead of Covenant to the corridor beyond the chamber.

This passage was as bright and cold as the outer hall. Foamfollower and Covenant could see that it sloped steeply downward, straight into the depths of the promontory. Looking along it, Covenant hoped that it would take him where he needed to go; he was too weak to sneak all through the Creche hunting for his doom.

Neither of them spoke; they did not want to risk being heard by the ur-viles. Foamfollower glanced at Covenant, shrugged once, and started down into the tunnel.

The low ceiling forced Foamfollower to move in a crouch, but he travelled down the corridor as swiftly as he could. And Covenant kept pace with him by leaning against the Giant’s back and simply allowing gravity to pull his strengthless legs from stride to stride. Like twins, brothers connected to each other despite all their differences by a common umbilical need, they crouched and shambled together through the rock of Ridjeck Thome.

As they descended, Covenant fell several times. His sense of urgency, his fear, grew in the constriction of the corridor; but it drained rather than energized him, left him as slack as if he had already been defeated. Livid cold drenched him, soaked into his bones like the fire of an absolute chill, surrounded him until he began to feel strangely comfortable in it-comfortable and drowsy, as if, like an exhausted sojourner, he were at last arriving home, sinking down before his rightful hearth. Then at odd moments he caught glimpses of the spirit of this place, the uncompromising flawlessness which somehow gave rise to, affirmed, the most rabid and insatiable malice. In this air, contempt and comfort became the same thing. Foul’s Creche was the domain of a being who understood perfection — a being who loathed life, not because it was any threat to him, but because its mortal infestations offended the defining passion of his existence. In those glimpses, Covenant’s numb, lacerated feet seemed to miss the stone, and he fell headlong at Foamfollower’s back.

But they kept moving, and at last they reached the end of the tunnel. It opened into a series of unadorned, unfurnished apartments-starkly exact and symmetrical-which showed no sign that they had ever been, or ever would be, occupied by anyone. Yet the cold, green light shone everywhere, and the air was as sharp as ice crystals. Foamfollower’s sweat formed a cluster of emeralds in his beard, and he was shivering, despite his normal immunity to temperature.

Beyond the apartments, they found a chain of stairs which took them downward through blank halls, empty caverns large enough to house the most fearsome banes, uninhabited galleries where an orator could have stormed at an audience of thousands. Here again they found no sign of any occupation. All this part of the Creche was for Lord Foul’s private use; no ur-viles or other creatures intruded, had ever intruded. Foamfollower hastened Covenant through the eerie perfection. Down they went, always down, seeking the depths in which Lord Foul would cherish the Illearth Stone. And around them, the ancient ill of Ridjeck Thome grew heavier and more dolorous at each deeper level. In time, Foamfollower became too cold to shiver; and Covenant shambled along at his side as if only an insistent yearning to find the Creche’s chillest place, the point of absolute ice, kept him from falling asleep where he was.

The instinct which took them downward at every opportunity did not mislead them. Gradually, Foamfollower began to sense the location of the Stone; the radiance of that bane became palpable to his sore nerves.

Eventually, they reached a landing in the wall of an empty pit. There he found another hidden door. Foamfollower opened it as he had the first one, and ducked through it into a high round hall. After Covenant had stumbled across the sill, Foamfollower closed the door and moved warily out into the centre of the hall.

Like the other halls the Giant had seen, this one was featureless except for its entrances. He counted eight large doorways, each perfectly spaced around the wall, perfectly identical to the others, each sealed shut with heavy stone doors. He could sense no life anywhere near him, no activity beyond any of the doors. But all his nerves shrilled in the direction of the Stone.

“There,” Foamfollower breathed softly, pointing at one of the entrances. “There is the thronehall of Ridjeck Thome. There Soulcrusher holds the Illearth Stone.”

Without looking at his friend, he went over to the door, placed his hands on it to verify his perception. “Yes,” he whispered. “It is here.” Dread and exultation wrestled together in him. Moments passed before he realized that Covenant had not answered him.

He pressed against the door to measure its strength. “Covenant,” he said over his shoulder, “my friend, the end is near. Cling to your courage for one moment longer. I will break open this door. When I do, you must run at once into the thronehall. Go to the Stone-before any power intervenes.” Still Covenant did not reply. “Unbeliever! We are at the end. Do not falter now.”

In a ghastly voice, Covenant said, “You don’t need to break it down.”

Foamfollower whirled, springing away from the door.

The Unbeliever stood in the centre of the hall. He was not alone.

An ur-vile loremaster stood before him, slavering from its gaping nostrils. In its hands, it held chains, shackles.

As Foamfollower watched in horror, it locked the shackles onto Covenant’s wrists. Leading him by the chain, it took him to the door of the thronehall.

The Giant started toward his friend. But Covenant’s terrible gaze stopped him. In the dark, starved bruises of Covenant’s eyes, he read something that he could not answer. The Unbeliever was trying to tell him something, something for which he did not have words. Foamfollower had studied the injury which other ur-viles had done to Covenant, but he could not fathom the depth of a misery which could make a man surrender to Demondim-spawn.

“Covenant!” he cried in protest.

Deliberately, Covenant’s gaze flicked away from the Giant-bored intensely into him and then jumped away, pulling Foamfollower’s eyes with it.

The Giant turned in spite of himself, and saw another Giant standing across the hall from him. The newcomer’s fists were clenched on his hips, and he was grinning savagely. Foamfollower recognized him at once; he was one of the three brothers who had fallen victim to the Ravers. Like Elena, this tormented soul had been resurrected to serve Soulcrusher.

Before Foamfollower could react, the door to the thronehall opened, then closed behind Covenant.

At the same time, all the other doors leaped open, pouring Stone-made monsters into the hall.