The Power That Preserves

Four: Siege

TWELVE days after the last charred trunks of Revelwood were consumed, reduced to ashes and trampled underfoot, Satansfist Raver, the right hand of the Grey Slayer, brought his vast, dolorous army to the stone gates of Lord’s Keep. He approached slowly, though his hordes tugged forward like leashed wolves; he restrained the ravening of the ur-viles and Cavewights and creatures he commanded so that all the inhabitants of Trothgard, and of the lands between Revelwood and the North Plains, would have time to seek safety in the Keep. This he did because he wished all the humans he meant to slay to be gathered in one place. Every increase in the Keep’s population would weaken its endurance by eating its stores of food. And crowds of people would be more susceptible than trained warriors or Lords to the fear he bore.

He was sure of the outcome of his siege. His army was not as immense as the one which moksha Fleshharrower his brother had lost in Garroting Deep. In order to secure his hold upon the regions he had already mastered, he had left scores of thousands of his creatures behind along the Roamsedge River, throughout the valley which formed the south border of Andelain, and across the Centre Plains. But the Despiser had lost little more than a third of his forces in that earlier war. And instead of wolves and kresh and unwieldy griffins, Satansfist had with him more of the lore-cunning, roynish, black, eyeless ur-viles, and more of the atrocious creatures which Lord Foul had raised up from the Great Swamp, Lifeswallower, from Sarangrave Flat, from the Spoiled Plains and the bosque of the Ruinwash — raised up and demented with the power of the Illearth Stone. In addition, the Giant-Raver had at his back a power of which the Lords of Revelstone had no conception. Therefore he was willing to prolong his approach to the Keep, so that he could hasten its eventual and irreparable collapse.

Then, early on the twelfth day, a sky-shaking howl shot through his hordes as they caught their first sight of the mountain plateau of Revelstone. Thousands of his creatures started to rush madly toward it through the foothills, but he knocked them back with the flail of his power. Ruling his army with a green scourge, he spent the whole day making his approach, placing his forces in position. When daylight at last drained away into night, his army was wrapped around the entire promontory of Revelstone, from the westmost edge of its south wall to the cliffs of the plateau on the northwest. His encampment locked the Keep in a wide, round formation, sealing it from either flight or rescue, from forages for food or missions to unknown allies. And that night, Satansfist feasted on the flesh of prisoners who had been captured during his long march from Landsdrop.

If any eyes in Revelstone had been able to penetrate the unbroken mass of clouds which frowned now constantly over the Land, they would have seen that this night was the dark of the moon on the middle night of spring. The Despiser’s preternatural winter had clenched the Land for forty-two days.

Satansfist had followed precisely the design which his master had given him for his march through the Upper Land.

The next morning, he went to face the watchtower which fronted the long walls of Revelstone at their wedge point. He paid no attention to the intricate Giantish labour which had produced the pattern of coigns and oriels and walks and battlements in the smooth cliff-walls; that part of him which could have responded to the sight had long ago been extinguished by the occupying Raver. Without a second glance at the walls, or at the warriors who sentried the crenellated parapets, he strode around the promontory until he stood before the great stone gates in the base of the tower on its southeast side-the only entrance into Lord’s Keep.

He was not surprised to find that the gates were open. Though the Giantish passion for stonework had been quelled in his blood, he retained his knowledge of the Keep. He knew that as long as those massive, interlocking gates remained intact, they could close upon command, trapping anyone who dared enter the tunnel under the tower. While in the tunnel, attackers would be exposed to counterattack from defensive windows built into the roof of the passage. And beyond the tunnel was nothing but a courtyard, open only to the sky, and then another set of gates even stronger than the first. The tower itself could not be entered except by suspended crosswalks from the main Keep, or through two small doors from the courtyard. Lord’s Keep had been well made. The Giant-Raver did not accept the dare of the open gates.

Instead, he placed himself just close enough to the tower to taunt skilled archers, and shouted up at the stone walls in a voice that vibrated with malice and glee. “Hail, Lords! Worthy Lords! Show yourselves, Lordlings! Leave off cowering in your useless warrens, and speak with me. Behold! I come courteously to accept your surrender!”

There was no answer. The tower, only half as high as the main Keep behind it, stood with its windows and battlements as silent as if it were uninhabited. A whimpering growl passed among the army as the creatures begged for a chance to charge through the open gates.

“Hear me, little Lords!” he shouted. “See the toils of my strength wrapped around you. I hold your last lives in the palm of my hand. There is no hope for you unless you surrender yourselves and all to the mercy of the Despiser.” Jeering barks from the ur-viles greeted this, and Satansfist grinned. “Speak, Lordlings! Speak or die!”

A moment later two figures appeared atop the tower-one a warrior and the other a blue-robed Lord whom Satansfist recognized. At first they ignored the Giant. They went to the flagpole, and together raised High Lord’s Furl, the azure oriflamme of the Council. Only after it was fluttering defiantly in the gelid wind did they step to the parapet and face Satansfist.

“I hear you!” the Lord snapped. “I hear you, samadhi Raver. I know you, Sheol Satansfist. And you know me. I am Mhoram son of Variol, High Lord by the choice of the Council. Depart, Raver! Take your ill hordes with you. You have touched me. You know that I will not be daunted.”

Fury glinted in the Giant’s eyes at the memory Mhoram invoked, but he placed his hand over the livid fragment of the Stone hidden under his jerkin, and gave Mhoram a sarcastic bow. “I know you, Mhoram,” he replied. “When I placed my hand upon you in the labyrinth of Kurash Qwellinir, I knew you. You were too blind with folly and ignorance to feel a wise despair. Therefore I permitted your life-so that you would live to better knowledge. Are you yet blind? Have you no eyes to see that your effectless end at my hand is as sure as the arch of Time? Have you forgotten the Giants? Have you forgotten the Bloodguard? In the name of the Despiser, I will certainly crush you where you cower!”

“Empty words,” Mhoram retorted. “Bravado is easily uttered-but you will find it difficult of proof. Melenkurion abatha! Raver, begone! Return to your forsaken master before the Creator forgets restraint, and wreaks a timeless vengeance upon you.”

The Giant laughed harshly. “Do not comfort yourself with lies, lordling. The arch of Time will be broken if the Creator seeks to strike through it-and then Lord Foul the Despiser, Satansheart and Soulcrusher, Corruption and Render, will be unloosed upon the universe! If the Creator tries to lift his hand, my brothers and I will feast upon his very soul! Surrender, fool! Learn to be daunted while grovelling may still preserve your life. Perhaps you will be permitted to serve me as my hand slave.”

“Never!” High Lord Mhoram cried boldly. “We will never bow to you while one pulse of faith still beats in the Land. The Earthpower is yet strong to resist you. We will seek it until we have found the means to cast down you and your master and all his works. Your victories are hollow while one soul remains with breath enough to cry out against you!” Raising his staff, he whirled it so that blue fire danced in the air about his head. Begone, samadhi Raver! Melenkurion abatha! Duroc minas mill khabaal! We will never surrender!”

Below him, Satansfist flinched under the power of the words. But an instant later, he sprang forward, snatching at his jerkin. With his piece of Illearth Stone clenched and steaming in his fist, he hurled a gout of emerald force up at the High Lord. At the same time, hundreds of creatures broke from their ranks and charged toward the open gates.

But Mhoram deflected the blast with his staff, sent it into the air over his head, where his own fiery power attacked it and consumed it. Then he ducked behind the concealment of the parapet. Over his shoulder, he called Warmark Quaan, “Seal the gates! Order the archers to slay any creatures which gain the courtyard. We cannot deal gently with this foe.”

Quaan was already on his way down the stairs into the complex passages of the tower, shouting orders as he ran to oversee the fray, Mhoram looked downward to assure himself that Satansfist had not passed through the gates. Then he hastened after Quaan.

From the highest of the crosswalks above the courtyard, he surveyed the skirmish. Strong Woodhelvennin archers drove their shafts into the milling creatures from the battlements on both sides of the court, and the sound of weapons echoed out of the tunnel. In moments, the fighting would be done. Gritting his teeth over the shed blood, Mhoram left the conclusion the skirmish in Quaan’s competent hands, and crossed the wooden span to the main Keep, where his fellow Lords awaited him.

As he met the sombre eyes of Trevor, Loerya, and Amatin, a sudden weariness came over him. Satansfist’s threats came so close to the truth. He held his companions were inadequate for the task of using even those few powers and mysteries which they possessed. And he was no nearer to a resolution of his secret knowledge than he had been when he had summoned and lost Thomas Covenant. He sighed, allowed his shoulders to sag. To explain himself, he said, “I had not thought there were so many ur-viles in all the world.” But the words were only tangential to what he felt.

Yet he could not afford such weariness. He was the High Lord. Trevor, Loerya, and Amatin had their own uncertainties, their own needs, which he could not refuse; he had already done them enough damage in the private dilemma of his heart. Drawing himself erect, he told them what he had seen and heard of the Raver and Lord Foul’s army.

When he was done, Amatin smiled wryly. “You affronted samadhi Raver. That was boldly done, High Lord.”

“I did not wish to comfort him with the thought that we believe him safe.”

At this, Loerya’s gaze winced. “Is he so safe?” she asked painfully.

Mhoram hardened. “He is not safe while there is heart or bone or Earthpower to oppose him. I only say that I know not how he may be fought. Let him discover my ignorance for himself.”

As she had so often in the past, Loerya once again attempted to probe his secret. “Yet you have touched Loric’s krill and given it life. Your hand drew a gleam of blue from the gem. Is there no hope in this? The legends say that the krill of Loric Vilesilencer was potent against the peril of the Demondim.”

“A gleam,” Mhoram replied. Even in the privacy of his own knowledge, he feared the strange power which had enabled him to spark the krill’s opaque jewel. He lacked the courage to explain the source of his strength. “What will that avail?”

In response, Loerya’s face thronged with demands and protests, but before she could voice them, a shout from the courtyard drew the Lords’ attention downward. Warmark Quaan stood on the flagstones amid the corpses. When Mhoram answered him, he saluted mutely with his sword.

Mhoram returned the salute, acknowledging Quaan’s victory. But he could not keep the hue of sadness from his voice as he said, “We have shed the first blood in this siege. Thus even those who oppose ill must wreak harm upon the victims of ill. Bear their bodies to the upland hills and burn them with purging fires, so that their flesh may recover its innocence in ashes. Then scatter their ashes over Furl Falls, as a sign to all the Land that we abhor the Despiser’s wrong, not the slaves which he has made to serve his wrong.”

The Warmark scowled, loath to honour his enemies with such courtesy. But he promptly gave the orders to carry out Mhoram’s instructions. Sagging again, Mhoram turned back to his fellow Lords. To forestall any further probing, he said, “The Giant knows he cannot breach these walls with swords and spears. But he will not stand idle, waiting for hunger to do his work. He is too avid for blood. He will attempt us. We must be prepared. We must stand constant watch within the tower-to counter any force which he may bring against us.”

Lord Trevor, eager for any responsibility which he believed to be within his ability, said, “I will watch.”

With a nod, Mhoram accepted. “Summon one of us when you are weary. And summon us all when Satansfist chooses to act. We must see him at work, so that we may learn our defence.” Then he turned to a warrior standing nearby. “Warhaft, bear word to the Hearthralls Tohrm and Borillar. Ask the Hirebrands and Gravelingases of Lord’s Keep to share the watch of the Lords. They also must learn our defence.”

The warrior saluted and walked briskly away. Mhoram placed a hand on Trevor’s shoulder, gripped it firmly for a moment. Then, with one backward look at the winter-stricken sky, he left the balcony and went to his chambers.

He intended to rest, but the sight of Elena’s marrowmeld sculpture standing restlessly on his table disturbed him. It had the fanatic, vulnerable look of a man, chosen to be a prophet, who entirely mistakes his errand-who, instead of speaking to glad ears the words of hope with which he was entrusted, spends his time preaching woe and retribution to a wilderland. Looking at the bust, Mhoram had to force himself to remember that Covenant had rejected the Land to save a child in his own world. And the Unbeliever’s ability to refuse help to tens of thousands of lives-to the Land itself-for the sake of one life was a capacity which could not be easily judged. Mhoram believed that large balances might be tipped by the weight of one life. Yet the face of the sculpture seemed at this moment taut with misapprehended purpose-crowded with all the people who would die so that one young girl might live.

As he gazed at this rendition of Covenant’s fate, High Lord Mhoram experienced again the sudden passion which had enabled him to draw a gleam from Loric’s krill. Danger filled his eyes, and he snatched up the sculpture as if he meant to shout at it. But then the hard lines of his mouth bent, and he sighed at himself. With conflicting intensities in his face, he bore the anundivian yajna work to the Hall of Gifts, where he placed it in a position of honour high on one of the rude, rootlike pillars of the cavern, after that, he returned to his chambers and slept.

He was awakened shortly after noon by Trevor’s summons. His dreamless slumber vanished instantly, and he was on his way out of his rooms before the young warrior who brought the message was able to knock a second time. He hastened up out of the recesses of Revelstone toward the battlements over the gates of the main Keep, where he chanced upon Hearthrall Tohrm. Together, they crossed to the tower and climbed the stairs to its top. There they found Trevor Loerya-mate with Warmark Quaan and Hirebrand Borillar.

Quaan stood between the Lord and the Hearthrall like an anchor to their separate tensions. Trevor’s whole face was clenched white with apprehension, and Borillar’s hands trembled on his staff with mixed dread and determination; but Quaan held his arms folded across his chest and frowned stolidly downward as if he had lost the capacity to be surprised by anything any servant of the Grey Slayer did. As the High Lord joined them, the old Warmark pointed with one tanned, muscular arm, and his rigid finger guided Mhoram’s eyes like an accusation to a gathering of ur-viles before the gates of the tower.

The ur-viles were within arrow reach, but a line of red-eyed Cavewights bearing wooden shields protected them by intercepting the occasional shafts which Quaan’s warriors loosed from the windows of the tower. Behind this cover, the ur-viles were building.

They worked with deft speed, and their construction quickly took shape in their midst. Soon Mhoram saw that they were making a catapult.

Despite the freezing ire of Foul’s wind, his hands began to sweat on his staff. As the ur-viles looped heavy ropes around the sprocketed winches at the back of the machine, lashed the ropes to the stiff throwing-arm, and sealed with flashes of black power a large, ominous iron cup to the end of the arm, he found himself tensing, calling all his lore and strength into readiness. He knew instinctively that the attackers did not intend to hurl rocks at Revelstone.

The Demondim-spawn worked without instructions from Satansfist. He watched from a distance, but neither spoke nor moved. A score of them clambered over the catapult-adjusting, tightening, sealing it-and High Lord Mhoram marvelled grimly that they could build so well without eyes. But they showed no need for eyes; noses were as discerning as vision. In a short time the finished catapult stood erect before Revelstone’s tower.

Then barking shouts chorused through the encampment, and a hundred ur-viles ran forward to the machine. On either side, a score of them formed wedges to concentrate their power and placed themselves so that their loremasters stood at the winches. Using their iron staves, the two loremasters began turning the sprockets, thus tightening the ropes and slowly bending the catapult’s arm backward. The catapult dwarfed the creatures, but by focusing their strength in wedges, they were able to crank the winches and bend the arm. And while this was being done, the other ur-viles came together and made an immense wedge behind the catapult. Against the background of the frozen snow-scud, they looked like a spear point aimed at the heart of the Keep.

With part of his mind, Mhoram observed that Lord Amatin now stood beside him. He glanced around for Loerya and saw her on a balcony of the main Keep. He waved his approval to her; if any holocaust struck the watchtower, all the Lords would not be lost. Then he cocked an eyebrow at Quaan, and when the Warmark nodded to indicate that the warriors were ready for any sudden orders, High Lord Mhoram returned his attention to the ur-viles.

As the arm of the catapult was drawn back, Gravelingas Tohrm knelt at the parapet, spreading his arms and pressing his palms against the slow curve of the wall. In a dim, alien voice, he began to sing a song of granite endurance to the stone.

Then the arm reached its fullest arc. Quivering as if it were about to splinter, it strained toward the tower. At once, it was locked into place with iron hooks. Its wide cup had been brought down to chest level directly in front of the loremaster who apexed the largest wedge.

With a ringing clang, the loremaster struck its stave against the cup. Strength surged through scores of black shoulders; they emanated power as the loremaster laboured over the cup. And thick, cruel fluid, as fiery as the vitriol which consumes flesh and obsidian and teak alike, splashed coruscating darkly from the stave into the waiting cup.

The High Lord had seen human bodies fall into ash at the least touch of fluid like that. He turned to warn Quaan. But the old Warmark needed no warning; he also had watched warriors die in Demondim acid. Before Mhoram could speak, Quaan was shouting down the stairwell into the tower, ordering his warriors away from all the exposed windows and battlements.

At Mhoram’s side, Lord Amatin’s slight form began to shiver in the wind. She held her staff braced before her as if she were trying to ward the cold away.

Slowly, the loremaster’s fluid filled the cup. It splashed and spouted like black lava, throwing midnight sparks into the air; but the lore of the ur-viles contained it, held its dark force together, prevented it from shattering the catapult.

Then the cup was full.

The ur-viles did not hesitate. With a hoarse, hungry cry, they knocked free the restraining hooks.

The arm arced viciously forward, slapped with flat vehemence against the stop at the end of its throw.

A black gout of vitriol as large as a Stonedownor home sprang through the air and crashed against the tower a few dozen feet below the topmost parapet.

As the acid struck stone, it erupted. In lightless incandescence, it burned at the mountain rock like the flare of a dark sun. Tohrm cried out in pain, and the stone’s agony howled under Mhoram’s feet. He leaped forward. With Trevor and Amatin beside him, he called blue Lords-fire from his staff and flung it down against the vitriol.

Together, the three staffs flamed hotly to counter the acid. And because the ur-viles could not replenish it, it fell apart in moments-dropped like pieces of hate from the wall, and seared the ground before it was extinguished.

It left behind a long scar of corrosion in the stone. But it had not broken through the wall.

With a groan, Tohrm sagged away from the parapet. Sweat ran down his face, confusing his tears so that Mhoram could not tell whether the Gravelingas wept from pain or grief or rage. “Melenkurion abatha!” he cried thickly. “Ah, Revelstone!”

The ur-viles were already cranking their catapult into position for another throw.

For an instant, Mhoram felt stunned and helpless. With such catapults, so many thousands of ur-viles might be able to tear Lord’s Keep down piece by piece, reduce it to dead rubble. But then his instinct for resistance came to life within him. To Trevor and Amatin he snapped, “Those blasts must not touch the Keep. Join me. We will shape a Forbidding.”

Even as they moved away from him on either side to prepare between them as wide a defence as possible, he knew that these tactics would not suffice. Three Lords might be able to deflect the greatest harm of a few attacks, but they could not repulse the assault of fifteen or twenty thousand ur-viles. “Tohrm!” he commanded sharply. “Borillar!”

At once, Hearthrall Tohrm began calling for more Gravelingases. But Borillar hesitated, searching around him uncertainly as if the urgency of the Situation interfered with his thinking, hid his own lore from him.

“Calmly, Hirebrand,” Mhoram said to steady him. “The catapults are of wood.”

Abruptly, Borillar spun and dashed away. As he passed Warmark Quaan, he cried, “Archers!” Then he was yelling toward the main Keep, “Hirebrands! Bring lor-liarill! We will make arrows!

In a dangerously short time, the ur-viles had cocked their machine and were filling its cup with their black vitriol. They fired their next throw scant moments after Tohrm’s rhadhamaerl reinforcements had positioned themselves to support the stone.

At Mhoram’s command, the Lords struck against the arcing gout of acid before it reached the tower. Their staffs flashed as they threw up a wall of fire across the acid’s path.

The fluid hit their fire with a force which shredded their Forbidding. The black acid shot through their power to slam against the tower wall. But the attack had spent much of its virulence. When it reached the stone, Tohrm and his fellow Gravelingases were able to withstand it.

It shattered against the strength which they called up in the rock, and fell flaming viciously to the ground, leaving behind dark stains on the wall but no serious damage.

Tohrm turned to meet High Lord Mhoram’s gaze. Hot anger and exertion flushed the Hearthrall’s face, but he bared his teeth in a grin which promised much for the defence of Revelstone.

Then three of Quaan’s archers joined the Lords, followed closely by two Hirebrands. The archers were tall Woodhelvennin warriors, whose slimness of form belied the strength of their bows. Warmark Quaan acknowledged them, and asked Borillar what he wanted them to do. In response, Borillar accepted from the Hirebrands six long, thin arrows. These were delicately rune-carved, despite their slenderness; their tips were sharpened to keen points; and their ends were fletched with light brown feathers. The Hearthrall gave two of them to each archer, saying as he did so, “This is lor-liarill, the rare wood called by the Giants of Seareach ‘Gildenlode.’ They-“

“We are Woodhelvennin,” the woman who led the archers said bluntly. ”Lor-liarill is known to us.”

“Loose them well,” returned Borillar. “There are no others prepared. Strike first at the Cavewights.”

The woman looked at Quaan to see if he had any orders for her, but he waved her and her companions to the parapet. With smooth competence, the three archers nocked arrows, bent bows, and took aim at the catapult.

Already, the ur-viles had pulled back its arm, and were busy rabidly refilling its iron cup.

Through his teeth, Quaan said, “Strike now.”

Together, three bowstrings thrummed.

Immediately, the defending Cavewights jerked up their shields, caught the arrows out of the air.

The instant the arrows bit wood, they exploded into flame. The force of their impact spread fire over the shields, threw blazing shreds and splinters down onto the Cavewights. Yelping in surprise and pain, the dull-witted, gangling creatures dropped their shields and jumped away from the fire.

At once, the archers struck again. Their shafts sped through the air and hit the catapult’s throwing arm, just below the cup. The lor-liarill detonated instantly, setting the black acid afire. In sudden conflagration, the fluid’s power smashed the catapult, scattered blazing wood in all directions. A score of ur-viles and several Cavewights fell, and the rest went scrambling beyond arrow range, leaving the pieces of the machine to burn themselves out.

With a fierce grin, the Woodhelvennin woman turned to Borillar and said, “The lillianrill make dour shafts, Hearthrall.”

Borillar strove to appear dispassionate, as if he were accustomed to such success, but he had to swallow twice before he could find his voice to say, “So it would appear.”

High Lord Mhoram placed a hand of praise on the Hearthrall’s shoulder. “Hirebrand, is there more lor-liarill which may be formed into such arrows?”

Borillar nodded like a veteran. “There is more. All the Gildenlode keels and rudders which were made for the Giants-before- That wood may be reshaped.”

“Ask the Hirebrands to begin at once,” said Mhoram quietly.

Smiling broadly, Tohrm moved to stand beside Borillar. “Hearthrall, you have outdone me,” he said in a teasing tone. “The rhadhamaerl will not rest until they have found a way to match this triumph of yours.”

At this, Borillar’s dispassion broke into a look of wide pleasure. Arm in arm, he and Tohrm left the tower, followed by the other Hirebrands and Gravelingases.

After bowing under a few curt words of praise from Quaan, the archers left also. He and the three Lords were left alone on the tower, gazing sombrely into each other’s eyes.

Finally, Quaan spoke the thought that was in all their faces. “It is a small victory. Larger catapults may strike from beyond the reach of arrows. Larger wedges may make power enough to breach the walls. If several catapults are brought to the attack together, we will be sorely pressed to resist even the first throws.”

“And the Illearth Stone has not yet spoken against us,” Mhoram murmured. He could still feel the force which had rent his defence tingling in his wrists and elbows. As an afterthought, he added, “Except in the voice of this cruel wind and winter.”

For a moment, he melded his mind with Trevor and Amatin, sharing his strength with them, and reminding them of their own resources. Then, with a sigh, Lord Amatin said, “I am of Woodhelvennin blood. I will assist Hearthrall Borillar in the making of these shafts. It will be slow work, and many of the lillianrill have other tasks.”

“And I will go to Tohrm,” Trevor said. “I have no lore to match the rhadhamaerl. But it may be that a counter to this Demondim-bane can be found in the fire-stones.”

Mhoram approved silently, put his arm around the two Lords and hugged them. “I will stand watch,” he said, “and summon Loerya when I am weary.” Then he sent Quaan with them from the tower, so that the Warmark could ready his warriors for all the work they might have to do if the walls were harmed. Alone, the High Lord stood and faced the dark encampment of Satansfist’s hordes — stood below the snapping Furl, which was already ragged in the sharp wind, planted the iron heel of his staff on the stone, and faced the encircling enemy as if his were the hand which held the outcome of the siege.

In the grey dimness toward evening, the ur-viles built another catapult. Beyond the reach of arrows, they constructed a stronger machine, one capable of throwing their power across the additional ground. But High Lord Mhoram summoned no aid. When the black spew of corrosion was launched, it had farther to travel; it was beyond the command of its makers for a longer time. Mhoram’s blue power lashed out at it as it reached the top of its arc. A fervid lightning of Lords-fire bolted into the vitriol, weakened its momentum, caused it to fall short. Splashing angrily, effectlessly, it crashed to the earth, and burned a morbid hole like a charnel pit in the frozen dirt.

The ur-viles withdrew, returned to the garish watch fires which burned throughout the army for the sake of the misborn creatures that needed light. After a time, Mhoram rubbed the strain from his forehead, and called Lord Loerya to take his place.

During the blind night, three more catapults were built in the safety of distance, then brought forward to attack Revelstone. None of them assaulted the tower; two of them threw at the walls of the main Keep from the north, one from the south. But each time the defenders were able to react quickly. The loremasters’ exertion of power as they cocked the machines radiated a palpable impression up at the battlements, and this emanation warned the Keep of each new assault. Archers waiting with lor-liarill arrows raced to respond.

They gained light to aim with by driving arrows into the ground near the catapults; in the sudden revealing fires, they destroyed two of the new threats as they had destroyed the first. But the third remained beyond bowshot, and attacked the south wall from a position out of Loerya’s reach. Yet this assault was defeated also. In a moment of inspiration, the Haft commanding the archers ordered them to direct their shafts at the acid as it arced toward the Keep. The archers fired a dozen shafts in rapid succession into the gout of fluid, and succeeded in breaking it apart, so that it spattered against the stone in weaker pieces and did little harm.

Fortunately, there were no more attacks that night. All the new Gildenlode arrows had been used, and the process of making more was slow and difficult. Throughout the next day also there were no attacks, though the sentries could see ur-viles building catapults in the distance. No move was made against Revelstone until deep in the chattering darkness of midnight. Then alarms rang through the Keep, calling all its defenders from their work or rest. In the wind-torn light of arrows aflame like torches in the frozen earth, the Lords and Hirebrands and Gravelingases and warriors and Lorewardens saw ten catapults being cranked into position beyond the range of the archers.

Orders hummed through the stone of the Keep. Men and women dashed to take their places. In moments, a Lord or a team of defenders stood opposite each catapult. As the cups were filled, Revelstone braced itself for the onslaught of power.

At the flash of a dank green signal from Satansfist, the ten catapults threw.

The defence outlined Revelstone in light, cast so much bright orange, yellow, and blue fire from the walls that the whole plateau blazed in the darkness like a conflagration of defiance. Working together from the tower, Mhoram and Amatin threw bolts of power which cast down two of the vitriol attacks. From the plateau atop Revelstone, the Lords Trevor and Loerya used their advantage of height to help them each deflect one cupful of corrosion into the ground.

Two of the remaining attacks were torn apart by Hearthrall Borillar’s arrows. Using a piece of orcrest given to them by Hearthrall Tohrm, and a lomillialor rod obtained from Lord Amatin, teams of Lorewardens erected barriers which consumed most of the virulence in two assaults, prevented them from doing any irrecoverable damage.

Gravelingases met the last two throws of the ur-viles. With one partner, Tohrm had positioned himself on a balcony directly in front of one catapult. They stood on either side of a stone vat of graveling, and sang a deep rhadhamaerl song which slowly brought their mortal flesh into harmony with the mounting radiance of the fire-stones. While the ur-viles filled the cup of the machine, Tohrm and his companion thrust their arms into the graveling, pushed their lore-preserved hands deep among the fire-stones near the sides of the vat. There they waited in the golden heat, singing their earthish song until the catapult threw and the vitriol sprang toward them.

In the last instant, they heaved a double armful of graveling up at the black gout. The two powers collided scant feet above their heads, and the force of the impact knocked them flat on the balcony. The wet corrosion of the acid turned the graveling instantly to cinders, but in turn the rhadhamaerl might of the fire-stones burned away the acid before the last drop of it touched Tohrm or Revelstone.

The other pair of Gravelingases were not so successful. They mistimed their countering heave, and as a result their graveling only stopped half the vitriol. Both men died in fluid fire which destroyed a wide section of the balcony.

But instead of striking again, launching more attacks to wear down the defences of the Keep, the ur-viles abandoned their catapults and withdrew-apparently satisfied with what they had learned about Revelstone’s mettle.

High Lord Mhoram watched them go with surprise in his face and cold dread in his heart. Surely the ur-viles had not been intimidated by the defence. If Satansfist chose now to change his tactics, it was because he had measured the weakness of Revelstone, and knew a better way to capitalize on it.

The next morning, Mhoram saw the commencement of Satansfist’s new strategy, but for two days after that he did not comprehend it. The Raver’s hordes moved closer to Revelstone, placed themselves hardly a hundred yards from the walls, and faced the plateau as if they expected its defenders to leap willingly into their jaws. The ur-viles moved among the slavering creatures and Cavewights, and formed scores of wedges which seemed to point toward the very heart of Revelstone. And behind them Satansfist stood in a broad piece of open ground, openly wielding his Stone for the first time. But he launched no physical onslaught, offered the Keep no opportunity to strike or be stricken. Instead, his creatures dropped to their hands and knees, and glared hungrily at Revelstone like crouching preyers. The ur-vile loremasters set the tips of their staves in the ground, began a barking ululation or invocation which carried in shreds to the Keep through the tearing wind. And samadhi Raver, Sheol and Satansfist, squeezed his fragment of the Illearth Stone so that it ran with steam like boiling ice.

As Mhoram watched, he could feel the upsurge of power on all sides; the exertion of might radiated at him until the skin of his cheeks stung under it despite the raw chill of the wind. But the besiegers took no other action. They held their positions in fierce concentration, scowling murderously as if they were envisioning the blood of their victims.

Slowly, tortuously, they began to have an effect upon the ground of the foothills. From the unflickering green blaze of the Stone, a rank emerald hue spread to the dirt around Satansfist’s feet and throbbed in the soil. It encircled him, pulsing like a fetid heart, then sent crooked offshoots like green veins through the ground toward Revelstone. These grew with each savage throb, branched out until they reached the backs of the crouching hordes. At that point, red pain sickly tinged with green blossomed from the embedded tips of the loremasters’ staves. Like Satansfist’s emerald, the ill red grew in the ground like arteries or roots of hurt. It shone through the grey ice on the earth without melting it, and expanded with each throb of samadhi’s central power until all of Revelstone was ringed in pulsing veins.

The process of this growth was slow and deadly; by nightfall, the red-green harm was not far past the feet of the ur-viles; and after a long, lurid darkness, dawn found the veins just halfway to the walls. But it was implacable and sure. Mhoram could conceive no defence against it because he did not know what it was.

During the next two days, the dread of it spread over Lord’s Keep. People began to talk in whispers. Men and women hurried from place to place as if they feared that the city stone were turning against them. Children whimpered inexplicably, and winced at the sight of well-known faces. A thick atmosphere of fear and incomprehension hovered in Revelstone like the spread wings of an alighting vulture. Yet Mhoram did not grasp what was being done to the city until the evening of the third day. Then by chance he approached Warmark Quaan unseen and unheard, and at the touch of his hand on Quaan’s shoulder, the Warmark reeled away in panic, clawing at his sword. When his eyes finally recognized the High Lord, his face filled with a grey ash of misery, and he trembled like an overwhelmed novice.

With a groan of insight, Mhoram understood Revelstone’s plight. Dread of the unknown was only the surface of the peril. As he threw his arms around Quaan’s trembling, he saw that the red-green veins of power in the ground were not a physical danger; rather, they were a vehicle for the raw emotional force of the Despiser’s malice-a direct attack on the Keep’s will, a corrosive hurled against the moral fabric of Revelstone’s resistance.

Fear was growing like a fatal disease in the heart of Lord’s Keep. Under the influence of those lurid veins, the courage of the city was beginning to rot.

It had no defence. The lillianrill and rhadhamaerl could build vast warming fires within the walls. The Lorewardens could sing in voices that shook helplessly brave songs of encouragement and victory. The Warward could drill and train until the warriors had neither leisure nor stamina for fear. The Lords could flit throughout the city like blue ravens, carrying the light of courage and support and intransigence wherever they went, from grey day to blind night to grey day again. The Keep was not idle. As time dragged its dread-aggravated length along, moved through its skeletal round with an almost audible clatter of fleshless bones, everything that could be done was done. The Lords took to moving everywhere with their staffs alight, so that their bright azure could resist the erosion of Revelstone’s spirit. But still the veined, bloody harm in the ground multiplied its aegis over the city. The malignance of tenscore thousand evil hearts stifled all opposition.

Soon even the mountain rock of the plateau seemed to be whimpering in silent fear. Within five days, some families locked themselves in their rooms and refused to come out; they feared to be abroad in the city. Others fled to the apparent safety of the upland hills. Mad fights broke out in the kitchens, where any cook or food handler could snatch up a knife to slash at sudden gusts of terror. To prevent such outbursts, Warmark Quaan had to station Eoman in every kitchen and refectory.

But though he drove them as if he had a gaunt spectre of horror clinging to his shoulders, he could not keep even his warriors from panic. This fact he was finally forced to report to the High Lord, and after hearing it, Mhoram went to stand his watch on the tower. Alone there, he faced the night which fell as heavily as the scree of despair against the back of his neck, faced the unglimmering emerald loathsomeness of the Stone, faced the sick, red-green veined fire-and hugged his own dread within the silence of his heart. If he had not been so desperate, he might have wept in sympathy for Kevin Landwaster, whose dilemma he now understood with a keenness that cut him to the bone of his soul.

Sometime later-after the darkness had added all its chill to Lord Foul’s winter, and the watch fires of the encampment had paled to mere sparks beside samadhi Raver’s loud, strong lust for death, Loerya Trevor-mate came to the tower, bearing with her a small pot of graveling which she placed before her when she sat on the stone, so that the glow lit her drawn face. The uplift of her visage cast her eyes into shadow, but still Mhoram could see that they were raw with tears.

“My daughters”-her voice seemed to choke her-“my children-they- You know them, High Lord,” she said as if she were pleading. “Are they not children to make a parent proud?”

“Be proud,” Mhoram replied gently. “Parents and children are a pride to each other.”

“You know them, High Lord,” she insisted. “My joy in them has been large enough to be pain. They-High Lord, they will no longer eat. They fear the food-they see poison in the food. This evil maddens them.”

“We are all maddened, Loerya. We must endure.”

“How endure? Without hope-? High Lord, it were better if I had not borne children.”

Gently, quietly, Mhoram answered a different question. “We cannot march out to fight this evil. If we leave these walls, we are ended. There is no other hold for us. We must endure.”

In a voice suffused with weeping, Loerya said, “High Lord, summon the Unbeliever.”

“Ah, sister Loerya-that I cannot do. You know I cannot. You know that I chose rightly when I released Thomas Covenant to the demands of his own world. Whatever other follies have twisted the true course of my life, that choice was not folly.”

“Mhoram!” she beseeched thickly.

“No. Loerya, think what you ask. The Unbeliever desired to save a life in his world. But time moves in other ways there. Seven and forty years have passed since he came first to Revelstone, yet in that time he has not aged even three cycles of the moon. Perhaps only moments have gone by for him since his last summoning. If he were called again now, perhaps he would still be prevented from saving the young child who needs him.”

At the mention of a child, sudden anger twisted Loerya’s face. “Summon him!” she hissed. “What are his nameless children to me? By the Seven, Mhoram! Summon-!”

“No.” Mhoram interrupted her, but his voice did not lose its gentleness. “I will not. He must have the freedom of his own fate-it is his right. We have no right to take it from him-no, even the Land’s utterest need does not justify such an act. He holds the white gold. Let him come to the Land if he wills. I will not gainsay the one true bravery of my unwise life.”

Loerya’s anger collapsed as swiftly as it had come. Wringing her hands over the graveling as if even the hope of warmth had gone out of them, she moaned, “This evening my youngest — Yolenid — she is hardly more than a baby-she shrieked at the sight of me.” With an effort, she raised her streaming eyes to the high Lord, and whispered, “How endure?”

Though his own heart wept for her, Mhoram met her gaze. “The alternative is Desecration.” As he looked into the ragged extremity of her face, he felt his own need crying out, urging him to share his perilous secret. For a moment that made his pulse hammer apprehensively in his temples, he knew that he would answer Loerya if she asked him. To warn her, he breathed softly, “Power is a dreadful thing.”

A spark of inchoate hope lit her eyes. She climbed unsteadily to her feet, brought her face closer to his and searched him. The first opening of a meld drained the surfaces of his mind. But what she saw or felt in him stopped her. His cold doubt quenched the light in her eyes, and she receded from him. In an awkward voice that carried only a faint vibration of bitterness, she said, “No, Mhoram. I will not ask. I trust you or no one. You will speak when your heart is ready.”

Gratitude burned under Mhoram’s eyelids. With a crooked smile, he said, “You are courageous, sister Loerya.”

“No.” She picked up her graveling pot and moved away from him. “Though it is no fault of theirs, my daughters make me craven.” Without a backward glance, she left the High Lord alone in the lurid night.

Hugging his staff against his chest, he turned and faced once more the flawless green wrong of the Raver’s Stone. As his eyes met that baleful light, he straightened his shoulders, drew himself erect, so that he stood upright like a marker or witness to Revelstone’s inviolate rock.