The Power That Preserves

Seven: Message to Revelstone

THOUGH his jaws ached with protests, Triock gave the orders which sent several of his comrades hurrying to collect supplies for Covenant, Foamfollower, and Lena. In that moment, the giving of those orders seemed to be the hardest thing he had ever done. The restraint which had allowed Covenant to live seven and forty years ago paled by comparison. The exertions which had brought Covenant to the Land now lost their meaning. Lena Atiaran-daughter’s desire to accompany the Unbeliever turned all Triock’s long years of devotion to dust and loss, and all his lavish love had been wasted.

Yet he could not refuse her-could not, though he had the authority to do so. He was one of Mithil Stonedown’s Circle of elders, and by old Stonedown tradition, even marriages and long journeys were subject to the approval of the Circle. Furthermore, he was the acknowledged leader of Mithil Stonedown’s defence. He could have commanded Lena to stay at home, and if his reasons were valid, all the Stonedown would have fought to keep her.

His reasons were valid. Lena was old, half confused. She might hamper Covenant’s movements; she might even risk his life again, as she had so recently. She would be in danger from all the enemies between Mithil Stonedown and Foul’s Creche. Covenant was the one man responsible for her condition, the man who had permanently warped the channel of her life. And he, Triock son of Thuler-he loved her.

Yet he gave the orders. He had never loved Lena in a way which would have enabled him to control her. At one time, he had been ready to break his Oath of Peace for her, but throughout most of his life now he had kept it for her. He had done his utmost to raise her daughter free of shame and outrage. He could not begin now to refuse the cost of a love to which he had so entirely given himself.

Once that ordeal was over, he grew somewhat calmer. In the back of his heart, he believed that if there were any hope for the Land in Thomas Covenant, it depended upon Covenant’s responses to Lena. Then his chief bitterness lay in the fact that he himself could not accompany Covenant could not go along to watch over Lena. He had his own work to do, work which he acknowledged and approved. Through the yearning clench of his jaws, he told himself that he would have to rely on Saltheart Foamfollower.

With a brusque movement, he pushed the grey snow out of his eyes and looked toward the Giant. Foamfollower met his gaze, came over to him, and said, “Be easy at heart, my friend. You know that I am not an inconsiderable ally. I will do all I can for both.”

“Take great care,” Triock breathed through his teeth. “The eyes which saw our work upon Kevin’s Watch are yet open. We did not close them in this battle.”

Foamfollower studied this thought for a moment, then said, “If that is true, then it is you who must take the greatest care. You bear your High Wood into the hazard of the South Plains.”

Triock shrugged. “High Wood or white gold-we must all tread cunningly. I can send none of my people with you.”

With a nod of approval, the Giant said, “I would refuse if they were offered. You will need every sword. The mountains where you will seek this Unfettered One are many leagues distant, and you will be required to fight much of your way.”

The clench of Triock’s teeth made his voice rasp harshly. “I take none but Quirrel and Yeurquin with me.”

Foamfollower started to protest, but Triock cut him off. “I need the speed of few companions. And Mithil Stonedown stands now in its gravest peril. For the first time, we have given open battle to the marauders. With the power we revealed on Kevin’s Watch, and the strength of our victory here, we have declared beyond question that we are not mere vagabond warriors, seeking refuge in lifeless homes. We have defended our Stonedown-we are an unbeaten people. Therefore the enemy will return against us with a host to dwarf this last band. No, Rockbrother,” he concluded grimly, “every war-ready hand must remain to hold what we have won — lest our foes break upon the Stonedown like a wave and leave not one home standing.”

After a moment, Foamfollower sighed. “I hear you. Ah, Triock-these are grave times indeed. I will rest easier when my friend Mhoram son Of Variol has received word of what we do.”

“You believe I will succeed?”

“Who can if you cannot? You are hardy and knowledgeable, familiar with plains and mountains-and marauders. You have accepted the need, though your feet yearn to follow other paths. Those who pursue their heart’s desire risk more subtle failures and treacheries. In some ways, it is well to leave your soul wish in other hands.” He spoke musingly, as if in his thoughts he were comparing Triock’s position with his own. “You can accomplish this message purely.”

“I reap one other blessing also,” Triock returned through a mouthful of involuntary gall. “The burden of mercy falls on your shoulders. Perhaps you will bear it more easily.”

Foamfollower sighed again, then smiled gently. “Ah, my friend, I know nothing of mercy. My own need for it is too great.”

The sight of Foamfollower’s smiling regret made Triock wish that he could protest against what the Giant said. But he understood only too well the complex loss and rue which weighed on Foamfollower. Instead, he returned the best smile he could manage and saluted Foamfollower from the bottom of his heart. Then he turned away to make his own preparations for travel.

In a short time, he packed blankets, an extra cloak, a small stoneware pot of graveling, supplies of dried meat, cheese, and fruit, and a knife to replace the one he had given Covenant, in a knapsack. He took only a few moments to whet his sword, and to secure his lomillialor rod in the tunic belt under his cloak. Yet when he returned to the open centre of the Stonedown, he found Covenant, Foamfollower, and Lena ready to depart. Lena carried her own few belongings in a pack like his; Foamfollower had all the supplies for the three of them in his leather sack, which he slung easily over his shoulder; and Covenant’s wounded face held a look of intentness or frustration, as if only the hurt on his mouth kept him from complaining impatiently. In that look, Triock caught a glimpse of how fragile Covenant’s avowed hatred was. It did not appear to be a sustaining Passion. Triock shivered. A foreboding distrust told him that Thomas Covenant’s resolve or passion would not suffice.

But he clenched the thought to himself as he returned Foamfollower’s final salute. There was nothing he could say. And a moment later, the Giant arid his two companions had disappeared northward between the houses.

Their footmarks filled with snow and faded from sight until Mithil Stonedown seemed to retain no record of their passing.

Gruffly, Triock said to Yeurquin and Quirrel, “We also must depart We must leave this valley while the snow holds.”

His two friends nodded without question. Their faces were empty of expression; they looked like people from whom combat had drained all other considerations-carried their short javelins as if the killing of enemies were their sole interest. From them, Triock drew a kind of serenity. He was no High Wood wielder to them, no bearer of burdens which would have bent the back of a Lord. He was only a man, fighting as best he could for the Land, without pretensions to wisdom or prophecy. This was a proper role for a Cattleherd in times of war, and he welcomed it.

Girded by the readiness of his companions, he went to the other elders and spent a short time discussing with them Mithil Stonedown’s precautions against future attacks. Then he left his home to them and went out into the snow again as if it were the duty of his life.

Flanked by Quirrel and Yeurquin, he left the village by the northward road, and crossed without stealth the stone bridge to the western side of the valley. He wanted to make good time while the snow cover lasted, so he stayed on the easiest route until he neared the end of the horn of mountains which formed the Mithil valley’s western wall. At that point, he moved off the road and started up into the foothills that clung around the tip of the horn.

He intended to skirt the peaks west and south almost as far as Doom’s Retreat, then swing northwest toward the isolated wedge of mountains which defended the South Plains from Garroting Deep. He could not take the straight march westward. In the open Plains, he would certainly encounter marauders, and when he did, he would have to flee wherever they chased him. So he chose the rugged terrain of the foothills. The higher ground would give him both a vantage from which to watch for enemies and a cover in which to hide from them.

Yet, as he plodded upward through the snow, he feared the choice he had made. In the foothills, he would need twenty days to reach those mountains beyond Doom’s Retreat; twenty days would be lost before he could begin to search for the Unfettered One. In that time, Covenant and his companions might travel all the way to Landsdrop or beyond. Then any message which the High Lord might receive would be too late; Covenant would be beyond any hand but the Grey Slayer’s.

With that dread in his heart, he began the arduous work of rounding the promontory.

He and his comrades had reached the first lee beyond the horn when the snowfall ended, late that afternoon. There he ordered a halt. Instead of running the risk of being seen-brown against the grey slush of the snow he made camp and let the long weariness which had been his constant companion since he first began fighting lull him to sleep.

Sometime after nightfall, Yeurquin awakened him. They moved on again, chewing strips of dried meat to keep some warmth in their bones, and washing the salt from their throats with mouthfuls of the unsavoury snow. In the cloud-locked darkness, they made slow progress. And every league took them farther from the hills they knew most intimately. After a tortuous and unsuccessful effort to scale one bluff slope, Triock cursed the dreary clasp of the sky and turned to descend toward easier ground nearer the Plains.

For most of the night, they travelled the lower hillsides, but when they felt dawn crouching near, they climbed again to regain their vantage. They pushed upward until they gained a high ridge from which they could see a long stretch of the way they had come. There they stopped. During the grey seepage of day into the air, they opened their smokeless graveling pots and cooked one hot meal. When they were done, they waited until the wind had obliterated all their tracks. Then they set watches, slept.

They followed this pattern for two more days-down out of the foothills at dusk, long, dark night-trek, back toward higher ground at dawn for one hot meal and sleep-and during these three days, they saw no sign of any life, human or animal, friend or foe, anywhere; they were alone in the cold grey world and the forlorn wind. Trudging as if they were half crippled by the snow, they pressed themselves through the chapped solitude toward Doom’s Retreat. Aside from the unpredictably crisp or muffled noises of their own movement, they heard nothing but the over-stressed cracklings of the ice and the scrapings of the wind, fractured in their ears by the rumpled hills.

But in the dawn of the fourth day, while they watched the wind slowly filling the footmarks of their train, they saw a dull, ugly, yellow movement cross one rib of the hills below them and come hunting upward in their direction. Triock counted ten in the pack.

“Kresh!” Yeurquin spat under his breath.

Quirrel nodded. “And hunting us. It must be that they passed downwind of us during the night.”

Triock shivered. The fearsome yellow wolves were not familiar to the people of the South Plains; until the last few years, the kresh had lived primarily in the regions north of Ra, foraging into the North Plains when they could not get Ranyhyn-flesh. And many thousands of them had been slain in the great battle of Doom’s Retreat. Yet they soon replenished their numbers, and now scavenged in every part of the Land where the hand of the Lords no longer held sway. Triock had never had to fight kresh, but he had seen what they could do. A year ago, one huge pack had annihilated the whole population of Gleam Stonedown, in the crystal hills near the joining of the Black and Mithil rivers; and when Triock had walked through the deserted village, he had found nothing but rent clothes and splinters of bone.

“Melenkurion!” he breathed as he gauged the speed of the yellow wolves. “We must climb swiftly.”

As his companions slung their packs, he searched the terrain ahead for an escape or refuge. But despite their roughness, the hills and slopes showed nothing which the wolves might find impassable; and Triock knew of no defensible caves or valleys this far from Mithil Stonedown.

He turned upward. With Quirrel and Yeurquin behind him, he started along a ridge of foothills toward the mountains.

In the lee of the ridge, the snow was not thick. They made good speed as they climbed and scrambled toward the nearest mountain flank. But it rose sheerly out of the hillslope ahead, preventing escape in that direction. When the western valley beside the ridge rose up toward the mountain, Triock swung to the right and ran downward, traversed the valley, lunged through the piled snow toward the higher ground on the far side.

Before he and his companions reached the top, the leading kresh crested the ridge behind them and gave out a ferocious howl. The sound hit Triock between his shoulder blades like the flick of a flail. He stopped, whirled to see the wolves rushing like yellow death along the ridge hardly five hundred yards from him.

The sight made the skin of his scalp crawl, and his cold-stiff cheeks twitched as if he were trying to bare his teeth in fear. Without a word, he turned and attacked the climb again, threw himself through the snow until his pulse pounded and he seemed to be surrounded by his own gasping.

When he gained the ridge top, he paused long enough to steady his gaze, then scanned the terrain ahead. Beyond this rib of the foothills, all the ground in a wide half-circle reaching to the very edge of the mountains fell steeply away into a deep valley. The valley was roughly conical in shape, open to the plains only through a sheer ravine on its north side. It offered no hope to Triock’s searching eyes. But clinging to the mountain edge beyond a narrow ledge along the lip of the valley was a broken pile of boulders, the remains of an old rockfall. Triock’s attention leaped to see if the boulders could be reached along the ledge.

“Go!” Quirrel muttered urgently. “I will hold them here.”

“Two javelins and one sword,” Triock panted in response. “Then they will outweigh us seven to two. I prefer you alive.” Pointing, he said, “We must cross that ledge to the rocks. There we can strike at the kresh from above. Come.”

He started forward again, driving his tired legs as fast as he could, and Quirrel and Yeurquin followed on his heels. When they reached the rough ground where the ridge blended into the cliff, they clambered through it toward the ledge.

At the ledge, Triock hesitated. The lip of the valley was packed in snow, and he could not tell how much solid rock was hidden under it. But the kresh were howling up the hill behind him; he had no time to scrape the snow clear. Gritting his teeth, he pressed himself against the cliff and started outward.

His feet felt the slickness of the ledge. Ice covered the rock under the snow. But he had become accustomed to ice in the course of this preternatural winter. He moved with small, unabrupt steps, did not let himself slip. In moments, Quirrel and Yeurquin were on the ledge as well, and he was half-way to his destination.

Suddenly, a muffled boom like the snapping of old bones echoed off the cliff. The ledge jerked. Triock scrambled for handholds in the rock, and found none. He and his comrades were too far from safety at either end of the ledge.

An instant later, it fell under their weight. Plunging like stones in an avalanche, they tumbled helplessly down the steep side of the valley.

Triock tucked his head and knees together and rolled as best he could. The snow protected him from the impacts of the fall, but it also gave way under him, prevented him from stopping or slowing himself. He could do nothing but hug himself and fall. Dislodged by the collapse of the ledge, more snow slid into the valley with him, adding its weight to his momentum as if it were hurling him at the bottom. In wild vertigo, he lost all sense of how far he had fallen or how far he was from the bottom. When he hit level ground, the force of the jolt slammed his breath away, left him stunned while snow piled over him.

For a time, he lay smothered under the snow, but as the dizziness relaxed in his head, he began to recover. He thrust himself to his hands and knees. Gasping, he fought the darkness which swarmed his sight like clouds of bats rushing at his face. “Quirrel!” he croaked. “Yeurquin!”

With an effort, he made out Quirrel’s legs protruding from the snow a short distance away. Beyond her, Yeurquin lay on his back. A bloody gash on his temple marred the blank pallor of his face. Neither of them moved.

Abruptly, Triock heard the scrabbling of claws. A savage howl like an anthem of victory snatched his gaze away from Quirrel and Yeurquin, made him look up toward the slope of the valley.

The kresh were charging furiously down toward him. They had chosen a shallower and less snowbound part of the ridge side, and were racing with rapacious abandon toward their fallen prey. Their leader was hardly a dozen yards from Triock.

He moved instantly. His fighting experience took over, and he reacted without thought or hesitation. Snatching at his sword, he heaved erect, presented himself as a standing target to the first wolf. Fangs bared, red eyes blazing, it leaped for his throat. He ducked under it, twisted, and wrenched his sword into its belly.

It sailed past him and crashed into the snow, lay still as if it were impaled on the red trail of its blood. But its momentum had torn his sword from his cold hand.

He had no chance to retrieve his weapon. Already the next wolf was gathering to spring at him.

He dove out from under its leap, rolled heels over head, snapped to his feet holding his lomillialor rod in his hands.

The rod was not made to be a weapon; its shapers in the Loresraat had wrought that piece of High Wood for other purposes. But its power could be made to burn, and Triock had no other defence. Crying the invocation in a curious tongue understood only by the lillianrill, he swung the High Wood over his head and chopped it down on the skull of the nearest wolf.

At the impact, the rod burst into flame like a pitch-soaked brand, and all the wolf’s fur caught fire as swiftly as tinder.

The flame of the rod lapsed immediately, but Triock shouted to it and hacked at a kresh bounding at his chest. Again the power flared. The wolf fell dead in screaming flames.

Another and another Triock slew. But each blast, each unwonted exertion of the High Wood’s might, drained his strength. With four kresh sizzling in the snow around him, his breath came in ragged heaves, gaps of exhaustion veered across his sight, and fatigue clogged his limbs like iron fetters.

The five remaining wolves circled him viciously.

He could not face them all at once. Their yellow fur bristled in violent smears across his sight; their red and horrid eyes flashed at him above their wet chops and imminent fangs. For an instant, his fighting instincts faltered.

Then a weight of compact fury struck him from behind, slammed him face down in the trampled snow. The force of the blow stunned him, and the weight on his back pinned him. He could do nothing but hunch his shoulders against the rending poised over the back of his neck. But the weight did not move. It lay as inert as death across his shoulder blades.

His fingers still clutched the lomillialor.

With a convulsive heave, he rolled to one side, tipped the heavy fur off him. It smeared him with blood-blood that ran, still pulsing, from the javelin which pierced it just behind its foreleg.

Another javelined kresh lay a few paces away.

The last three wolves dodged and feinted around Quirrel. She stood over Yeurquin, whirling her sword and cursing.

Triock lurched to his feet.

At the same time, Yeurquin moved, struggled to get his legs under him. Despite the wound on his temple, his hands pulled instinctively at his sword.

The sight of him made the wolves hesitate.

In that instant, Triock snatched a javelin from the nearest corpse and hurled it with the strength of triumph into the ribs of another kresh.

Yeurquin was unsteady on his feet; but with one lumbering hack of his sword, he managed to disable a wolf. It lurched away from him on three legs, but he caught up with it and cleft its skull.

The last kresh was already in full flight. It did not run yipping, with its tail between its legs, like a thrashed cur; it shot straight toward the narrow outlet of the valley as if it knew where allies were and intended to summon them.

“Quirrel!” Triock gasped.

She moved instantly. Ripping her javelin free of the nearest wolf, she balanced the short shaft across her palm, took three quick steps, and lofted it after the running kresh. The javelin arched so high that Triock feared it would fall short, then plunged sharply downward and caught the wolf in the back. The beast collapsed in a rolling heap, flopped several times across the snow, throwing blood in all directions, quivered, and lay still.

Triock realized dimly that he was breathing in rough sobs. He was so spent that he could hardly retain his grip on the lomillialor. When Quirrel came over to him, he put his arms around her, as much to gain strength from her as to express his gratitude and comradeship. She returned the clasp briefly, as if his gesture embarrassed her. Then they moved toward Yeurquin.

Mutely, they inspected and tended Yeurquin’s wound. Under other circumstances, Triock would not have considered the hurt dangerous; it was clean and shallow, and the bone was unharmed. But Yeurquin still needed time to rest and heal-and Triock had no time. The plight of his message was now more urgent than ever.

He said nothing about this. While Quirrel cooked a meal, he retrieved their weapons, then buried all the kresh and the blood of battle under mounds of grey snow. This would not disguise what had happened from any close inspection, but Triock hoped that a chance enemy passing along the rim of the valley would not be attracted to look closer.

When he was done, he ate slowly, gathering his strength, and his eyes jumped around the valley as if he expected ur-viles or worse to rise up suddenly from the ground against him. But then his mouth locked into its habitual dour lines. He made no concessions to Yeurquin’s injury; he told his companions flatly that he had decided to leave the foothills and risk cutting straight west toward the mountains where he hoped to find the Unfettered One. For such a risk, the only possibility of success lay in speed.

With their supplies repacked and their weapons cleaned, they left the valley through its narrow northward outlet at a lope.

They travelled during the day now for the sake of speed. Half dragging Yeurquin behind them, Triock and Quirrel trotted doggedly due west, across the cold-blasted flatland toward the eastmost outcropping of the mountains. As they moved, Triock prayed for snow to cover their trail.

By the end of the next day, they caught their first glimpses of the great storm which brooded for more than a score of leagues in every direction over the approaches to Doom’s Retreat.

North of that defile through the mountains, the parched ancient heat of the Southron Wastes met the Grey Slayer’s winter, and the result was an immense storm, rotating against the mountain walls which blocked it on the south and west. Its outer edges concealed the forces which raged within, but even from the distance of a day’s hard travelling, Triock caught hints of hurricane conditions: cycling winds that ripped along the ground as if they meant to lay bare the bones of the earth; snow as thick as night; gelid air cold enough to freeze blood in the warmest places of the heart.

It lay directly across his path.

Yet he led Quirrel and Yeurquin toward it for another day, hurried in the direction of the storm’s core until its outer winds were tugging at his garments, and its first snows were packing wetly against his windward side. Yeurquin was in grim condition-blood oozed like exhaustion through the overstrained scabs of his wound, and the tough fiber of his stamina was frayed and loosened like a breaking rope. But Triock did not turn aside. He could not attempt to skirt the storm, could not swing north toward the middle of the South Plains to go around. During the first night after the battle with the kresh, he had seen watch fires northeast of him. They were following him. He had studied them the next night, and had perceived that they were moving straight toward him, gaining ground at an alarming rate.

Some enemy had felt his exertion of the lomillialor. Some enemy knew his scent now and pursued him like mounting furore.

“We cannot outrun them,” Quirrel observed grimly as they huddled together under the lip of the storm to rest and eat.

Triock said nothing. He could hear Covenant rasping, If we don’t start doing the impossible. Doing the impossible.

A moment later, she sniffed the wind. “And I do not like the taste of this weather. There is a blizzard here-a blast raw enough to strike the flesh from our limbs.”

The impossible, Triock repeated to himself. He should have said to the Unbeliever, “I was born to tend cattle. I am not a man who does impossible things.” He was tired and old and unwise. He should have taken Lena and led his people toward safety deep in the Southron Range, should have chosen to renew the ancient exile rather than allow one extravagant stranger to bend all Mithil Stonedown to the shape of his terrible purpose.

Without looking at him, Quirrel said, “We must separate.”

“Separate,” Yeurquin groaned hollowly.

“We must confuse the trail-confuse these”-she spat fiercely along the wind-“so that you may find your way west.”

Impossible. The word repeated itself like a weary litany in Triock’s mind.

Quirrel raised her eyes to face him squarely. “We must.”

And Yeurquin echoed, “Must.”

Triock looked at her, and the wrinkles around his eyes winced as if even the skin of his face were afraid. For a moment, his jaw worked soundlessly. Then he grimaced. “No.”

Quirrel tightened in protest, and he forced himself to explain. “We would gain nothing. They do not follow our trail-they could not follow a trail so swiftly. Your trails would not turn them aside. They follow the spoor of the High Wood.”

“That cannot be,” she replied incredulously. “I sense nothing of it from an arm’s reach away.”

“You have no eyes for power. If we part, you will leave me alone against them.”

“Separate,” Yeurquin groaned again.

“No!” Anger filled Triock’s mouth. “I need you.”

“I slow you,” the injured man returned emptily, fatally. His face looked pale and slack, frost-rimed, defeated.

“Come!” Triock surged to his feet, quickly gathered his supplies and threw his pack over his shoulders, then stalked away across the wind in the direction of the storm’s heart. He did not look behind him. But after a moment Quirrel caught up with him on the right, and Yeurquin came shambling after him on the left. Together, they cut their way into the blizzard.

Before they had covered a league, they were stumbling against wind and snow as if the angry air were assaulting them with fine granite chips of cold. Snow piled against them, and the wind tore through their clothes as if the fabric were thinner than gauze. And in another league, they lost the light of day; the mounting snow flailed it out of the air. Quirrel tried to provide some light by uncovering a small urn of graveling, but the wind snatched the fire-stones from the urn, scattered them like a brief burning plume of gems from her hands. When they were gone, Triock could hardly make out her form huddled dimly near him, too cold even to curse what had happened. Yeurquin had dropped to the ground when they had stopped, and already he was almost buried in snow. Ahead of them — unmuffled now by the outer winds-Triock could see something of the rabid howl and scourge of the storm itself, the hurricane or blizzard shrieking at the violence of the forces which formed it.

Its fury slammed against his senses like the crumbling of a mountain. Peering at it, he knew that there was nothing erect within it, no beast or man or Giant or tree or stone; the maelstroming winds had long since levelled everything which had dared raise its head above the battered line of the ground. Triock had to protect his eyes with his hands. Impossible was a pale word to describe the task of walking through that storm. But it was his only defence against pursuit.

With all the strength he could muster, he lifted Yeurquin and helped the injured man lurch onward.

Black wind and sharp snow clamped down on him, stamped at him, slashed sideways to cut his legs from under him. Cold blinded him, deafened him, numbed him; he only knew that he had not lost his companions because Quirrel clutched the back of his cloak and Yeurquin sagged with growing helplessness against him. But he himself was failing, and could do nothing to prevent the loss. He could hardly breathe; the wind ripped past him so savagely that he caught only inadequate pieces of it. Yeurquin’s weight seemed unendurable. He jerked woodenly to a halt. Out of a simple and unanswerable need for respite, he pushed Yeurquin away, forced him to support himself.

Yeurquin reeled, tottered a few steps along the wind, and abruptly vanished-disappeared as completely as if a sudden maw of the blizzard had swallowed him.

“Yeurquin!” Triock screamed. “Yeurquin!”

He dashed after his friend, grappling, groping frantically for him. For an instant, a dim shape scudded away just beyond his reach. “Yeurquin!” Then it was gone, scattered into the distance like a handful of brittle leaves on the raving wind.

He ran after it. He was hardly conscious of Quirrel’s grip on his cloak, or of the wind yammering at his back, impelling him southward, away from his destination. Fear for Yeurquin drove every other thought from his mind. Suddenly he was no longer the bearer of impossible messages for the Lords. With a rush of passion, he became mere Triock son of Thuler, the former Cattleherd who could not bear to abandon a friend. He ran along the wind in search of Yeurquin as if his soul depended on it.

But the snow struck at his back like one vicious blow prolonged into torment; the wind yelped and yowled in his numb ears, unmoored his bearings; the cold sucked the strength out of him, weakened him as if it frosted the blood in his veins. He could not find Yeurquin. He had rushed past his friend unknowing in the darkness-or Yeurquin had somewhere found the strength to turn to one side against the wind-or the injured man had simply fallen and disappeared under the snow. Triock shouted and groped and ran, and encountered nothing but the storm. When he tried to turn his head toward Quirrel, he found that inches of ice had already formed on his shoulders, freezing his neck into that one strained position. His very sweat turned to ice on him. He could not resist the blast. If he did not keep stumbling tortuously before the wind, he would fall and never rise again.

He kept going until he had forgotten Yeurquin and Covenant and messages, forgotten everything except the exertion of his steps and Quirrel’s grim grasp on his cloak. He had no conception of where he was going; he was not going anywhere except along the wind, always along the wind. Gradually the storm became silent around him as the crusting snow froze over his ears. Leagues passed unnoticed. When the ground abruptly canted upward under him, he fell to his hands and knees. A wave of numbness and lassitude ran through him as if it were springing from the frostbite in his hands and feet.

Something shook his head, something was hitting him on the side of his head. At first, the ice protected him, then it broke away with a tearing pain as if it had taken his ear with it. The howling of wind demons rushed at him, and he almost did not hear Quirrel shout, “Hills! Foothills! Climb! Find shelter!”

He was an old man, too old for such labour. He was a strong Stonedown Cattleherd, and did not intend to die frozen and useless. He lumbered to his feet, struggled upward.

Leaning weakly back against the wind, he ascended the ragged slope. He realized dimly that both wind and snow were less now. But still he could see nothing; now the storm itself was wrapped in night. When the slope became too steep for the wind to push him up it, he turned to the side which offered the least resistance and went on, lumbering blindly through knee-deep snow, letting the blizzard guide him wherever it chose.

Yet in spite of the night and the storm, his senses became slowly aware of looming rock walls. The wind lost its single fury, turned to frigid gusts and eddies, and he limped between sheer, close cliffs into a valley. But the disruption of the storm’s force came too late to save him. The valley floor lay waist-deep in heavy grey snow, and he was too exhausted to make much headway against it. Once again, he found he was supporting a comrade; Quirrel hung from his shoulders like spent mortality. Soon he could go no farther. He fell into a snowbank, gasping into the snow,’ Tire. Must-fire.”

But his hands were too frozen, his arms were too locked in ice. He could not reach his lomillialor rod, could never have pulled flame from it. Quirrel had already lost her graveling. And his was in his pack. It might as well have been lost also; he could not free his shoulders from the pack straps. He tried to rouse Quirrel, failed. The lower half of her face was caked in ice, and her eyelids fluttered as if she were going into shock.

“Fire,” Triock rasped. He was sobbing and could not stop. Frustration and exhaustion overwhelmed him. The snow towered above him as if it would go on forever.

Tears froze his eyes shut, and when he pried them open again, he saw a yellow flame flickering its way toward him. He stared at it dumbly. It bobbed and weaved forward as if it were riding the wick of an invisible candle until it was so close to his face that he could feel its warm radiance on his eyeballs. But it had no wick. It stood in the air before his face and flickered urgently, as if it were trying to tell him something.

He could not move; he felt that ice and exhaustion had already frozen his limbs to the ground. But when he glanced away from the flame, he saw others, three or four more, dancing around him and Quirrel. One of them touched her forehead as if it were trying to catch her attention. When it failed, it flared slightly, and at once all the flames left, scurried away down the valley. Triock watched them go as if they were his last hope.

Then the cold came over him like slumber, and he began to lose consciousness. Unable to help himself, he sagged toward night. The cold and the snow and the valley faded and were replaced by vague faces-Lena, Elena, Atiaran, Trell, Saltheart Foamfollower, Thomas Covenant. They all regarded him with supplication, imploring him to do something. If he failed, their deaths would have no meaning. “Forgive me,” he breathed, speaking especially to Covenant. “Forgive.”

“Perhaps I shall,” a distant voice replied. “It will not be easy-I do not desire these intrusions. But you bear a rare token. I see that I must at least help you.”

Struggling, Triock turned his sight outward again. The air over his head was bright with dancing flames, each no larger than his hand. And among them stood a tall man dressed only in a long robe the colour of granite. He met Triock’s gaze awkwardly, as if he were unaccustomed to dealing with eyes other than his own. But when Triock croaked, “Help,” he replied quickly, “Yes. I will help you. Have no fear.”

Moving decisively, he knelt, pulled open Triock’s cloak and tunic, and placed one warm palm on his chest. The man sang softly to himself, and as he did so, Triock felt a surge of heat pour into him. His pulse steadied almost at once; his breathing unclenched; with wondrous speed, the possibility of movement returned to his limbs. Then the man turned away to help Quirrel. By the time Triock was on his feet among the bobbing flames, she had regained consciousness.

He recognized the flames now; he had heard of them in some of the happiest and saddest legends of the Land. They were Wraiths. As he shook his head clear of ice, he heard through the gusting wind snatches of their light crystal song, music like the melody of perfect quartz. They danced about him as if they were asking him questions which he would never be able to understand or answer, and their lights bemused him, so that he stood entranced among them.

The tall man distracted him by helping Quirrel to her feet. Surrounded by Wraiths, he raised her, supported her until she could stand on her own. Then for a moment he looked uncomfortably back and forth between her and Triock. He seemed to be asking himself if he could justify leaving them there, not helping them further. Almost at once, however, he made his decision. The distant roar of the blizzard rose and fell as if some hungry storm-animal strove to gain access to the valley. He shivered and said, ‘Come. Foul’s winter is no place for flesh and blood.”

As the man turned to move toward the upper end of the valley, Triock said abruptly, “You are One of the Unfettered.”

“Yes. Yet I aid you.” His voice vanished as soon as it appeared on the tattered wind. “I was once Woodhelvennin. The hand of the Forest is upon me-And you”-he was thrusting powerfully away through the snow as if he were talking to himself, as if he had been companionless for so long that he had forgotten how people listen-“bear lomillialor.”

Triock and Quirrel pushed after him. His gait was strong, unweary, but by following his path through the drifts, they were able to keep up with him. The Wraiths lighted their way with crystal music until Triock felt that he was moving through a pocket of Andelain, a brief eldritch incarnation of clean light and warmth amid the Grey Slayer’s preternatural malevolence. In the dancing encouragement of the flames, he was able to disregard his great fatigue and follow the Unfettered One’s song:

Lone

Unfriended

Bondless

Lone-

Drink of loss until ’tis done:

Til solitude has come and gone,

And silence is communion-

And yet

Unfriended

Bondless

Lone.

Slowly, they worked their way up to the end of the valley. It was blocked by a huge litter of boulders, but the Unfettered One led them along an intricate path through the rocks. Beyond, they entered a sheer ravine which gradually closed over their heads until they were walking into a black cave lit only by the flickering of the Wraiths. In time, the crooked length of the cave shut out all the wind and winter. Warmth grew around Triock and Quirrel, causing their garments to drip thickly. And ahead they saw more light.

Then they reached the cave end, the Unfettered One’s home. Here the cave expanded to form a large chamber, and all of it was alive with light and music, as scores of Wraiths flamed and curtsied in the air. Some of them cycled through the centre of the chamber, and others hung near the black walls as if to illuminate inscriptions on the gleaming facets of the stone. The floor was rude granite marked by lumps and projecting surfaces which the Unfettered One clearly used as chairs, tables, bed. But the walls and ceiling were as black as obsidian, and they were covered with reflective irregular planes like the myriad fragments of a broken mirror in which the Wraith light would have dazzled the beholders if the surfaces had not been made of black stone. As it was, the chamber was warm and evocative; it seemed a fit place for a seer to read the writing graved within the heart of the mountain.

At the mouth of the chamber, Triock and Quirrel shed their packs and cloaks, opened their ice-stiff inner garments to the warmth. Then they took their first clear look at their rescuer. He was bald except for a white fringe at the back of his head, and his mouth hid in a gnarled white beard. His eyes were so heavily couched in wrinkles that he seemed to have spent generations squinting at illegible communications; and this impression of age was both confirmed by the old pallor of his skin and denied by the upright strength of his frame. Now Triock could see that his robe had been white at one time. It had gained its dull granite colour from long years of contact with the cave walls.

In his home, he seemed even more disturbed by the Stonedownors. His eyes flicked fearful and surprised glances at them-not as if he considered them evil, but rather as if he distrusted their clumsiness, as if his life lay in fragile sections on the floor and might be broken by their feet.

“I have little food,” he said as he watched the puddles which Triock and Quirrel left behind. “Food also-I have no time for it.” But then an old memory seemed to pass across his face-a recollection that the people of the Land did not treat their guests in this way. Triock felt suddenly sure that the One had been living in this cave before he, Triock, was born. “I am not accustomed,” the man went on as if he felt he should explain himself. “One life does not suffice. When I found I could not refuse succour to the Wraiths-much time was lost. They repay me as they can, but much-much- How can I live to the end of my work? You are costly to me. Food itself is costly.”

As Triock recovered himself in the cave’s mouth, he remembered his message to the Lords, and his face tightened into its familiar frown. “The Grey Slayer is costly,” he replied grimly.

His statement disconcerted the Unfettered One. “Yes,” he mumbled. Bending quickly, he picked up a large flask of water and a covered urn containing dried fruit. “Take all you require,” he said as he handed these to Triock. “I have-I have seen some of the Despiser’s work. Here.” He gestured vaguely at the walls of his cave.

There was little fruit in the urn, but Triock and Quirrel divided it between them. As he munched his share, Triock found he felt a great deal better. Although the meagre amount of food hardly touched his hunger, his skin seemed to be absorbing nourishment as well as warmth from the Wraith light. And the radiance of the flames affected him in other ways also. Gradually the numbness of frostbite faded from his fingers and toes ears; blood and health flowed back into them as if they had been treated with hurtloam. Even the habitual sourness which galled his mouth seemed to decline.

But his mission remained clear to him. When he was sure that Quirrel had regained her stability, he asked her to go a short way out of the tunnel to stand guard.

She responded tightly, “Will pursuit come even here?”

“Who can say?” The Unfettered One did not appear to be listening, so Triock went on: “But we must have this One’s aid-and I fear he will not be persuaded easily. We must not be surprised here with the message unattempted.”

Quirrel nodded, approving his caution though she clearly believed that no pursuit could have followed them through the blizzard. Without delay, she collected her cloak and weapons and moved away down the cave until she was out of sight beyond the first bend.

The Unfettered One watched her go with a question in his face.

“She will stand guard while we talk,” Triock answered.

“Do we require guarding? There are no ill creatures in these mountains in this winter. The animals do not intrude.”

” Foes pursue me,” said Triock. ” I bear my own ill — and the Land’ s need.” But there he faltered and fell silent. For the first time, he realized the immensity of his situation. He was face to face with an Unfettered One and Wraiths. In this cave, accompanied by dancing flames, the One studied secret lores which might have amazed even the Lords. Awe crowded forward in Triock; his own audacity daunted him. “Unfettered One,” he mumbled, “lore-servant I do not intrude willingly. You are beyond me. Only the greatness of the need drives“

“I have saved your life,” the One said brusquely. “I know nothing of other needs.”

“Then I must tell you.” Triock gathered himself and began, “The Grey Slayer is abroad in the Land-“

The tall man forestalled him. “I know my work. I was given the Rites of Unfettering when Tamarantha was Staff-Elder of the Loresraat, and know nothing else. Except for the intrusion of the Wraiths, except which I could not refuse I have devoted my meagre flesh here, so that I might work my work and see what no eyes have seen before. I know nothing else no, not even how the Wraiths came to be driven from Andelain, though they speak of ur-viles and — Such talk intrudes.”

Triock was amazed. He had not known that Tamarantha Variol-mate had ever been Staff-Elder of the Loresraat, but such a time must have been decades before Prothall became High Lord at Revelstone. This Unfettered One must have been out of touch with all the Land for the past four-or five-score years. Thickly, awefully, Triock said, “Unfettered One, what is your work?”

A grimace of distaste for explanations touched the man’s face. “Words, I do not speak of it. Words falter.” Abruptly, he moved to the wall and touched one of the stone facets gently, as if he were caressing it. “Stone is alive. Do you see it? You are Stonedownor do you see it? Yes, alive-alive and alert. Attentive. Everything — everything which transpires upon or within the Earth is seen — beheld — by the Earthrock.” As he spoke, enthusiasm came over him. Despite his awkwardness, he could not stop once he had begun. His head leaned close to the stone until he was peering deeply into its flat blackness. “But the-the process-the action of this seeing is slow. Lives like mine are futilely swift Time-time! — is consumed as the seeing spreads-from the outer surfaces inward. And this time varies. Some veins pass their perception in to the mountain roots in millennia. Others require millennia of millennia.

“Here”- he gestured around him without moving from where he stood-“can be seen the entire ancient history of the Land. For one whose work is to see. In these myriad facets are a myriad perceptions of all that has occurred. All!

“It is my work to see-and to discover the order-and to preserve-so that the whole life of the Land may be known.”

As he spoke, a tremor of passion shook the Unfettered One’s breathing.

“Since the coming of the Wraiths, I have studied the fate of the One Forest. I have seen it since the first seed grew to become the great Tree. I have seen its awakening-its awareness-the peaceful communion of its Land-spanning consciousness. I have seen Forestals born and slain. I have seen the Colossus of the Fall exercise its interdict. The hand of the Forest is upon me. Here”-his hands touched the facet into which he stared as if the stone were full of anguish-“I see men with axes-men of the ground with blades formed from the bones of the ground-I see them cut-!”

His voice trembled vividly. “I am Woodhelvennin. In this rock I see the desecration of trees. You are Stonedownor. You bear a rare fragment of High Wood, precious lomillialor”

Suddenly, he turned from the wall and confronted Triock with a flush or urgent fervour, almost of desperation, in his old face.” Give it to me!” he begged. “It will help me see.” He came forward until his eager hands nearly touched Triock’s chest. “My life is not the equal of this rock.”

Triock did not need to think or speak. If Covenant himself had been standing at his back, he would not have acted differently; he could not distrust an Unfettered One any more than he could have distrusted a Lord.

Without hesitation, he drew out the High Wood rod and placed it in the tall man’s hands. Then, very quietly, he said, “The foes who pursue me also seek this lomillialor. It is a perilous thing I have given you.”

The One did not appear to hear. As his fingers closed on the wood, his eyes rolled shut, and a quiver passed through his frame; he seemed to be drinking in the High Wood’s unique strength through his hands.

But then he turned outward again. With several deep breaths he steadied himself until he was gazing calmly into Triock’s face.

“Perilous,” he said. “I hear you. You spoke of the Land’s need. Do you require aid to fight your foes?”

“I require a message.” All at once, Triock’s own urgency came boiling up in him, and he spouted, “The whole Land is at war! The Staff of Law has been lost again, and with it the Law of Death has been broken! Creatures that destroy stone have attacked Mithil Stonedown. Revelstone itself is besieged! I need-!”

“I hear you,” the tall man repeated. His earlier awkwardness was gone; possession of the High Wood seemed to make him confident, capable. “Do not fear. I have found that I must help you also. Speak your need.”

With an effort, Triock wrenched himself into a semblance of control. “You have heard the Wraiths,” he rasped. “They spoke to you of ur-viles- and white gold. The bearer of that white gold is a stranger to the Land, and he has returned. The Lords do not know this. They must be told.”

“Yes.” The One held Triock’s hot gaze. “How?”

“The Loresraat formed this High Wood so that messages may be spoken through it. I have no lore for such work. I am a Stonedownor, and my hands are not apt for wood. I-“

But the Unfettered One accepted Triock’s explanation with a wave of his hand. “Who,” he asked, “who in Revelstone can hear such speaking?”

“High Lord Mhoram.”

“I do not know him. How can I reach him? I cannot direct my words to him if I do not know him.”

Inspired by urgency, Triock answered, “He is the son of Tamarantha Variol-mate. You have known Tamarantha. The thought of her will guide you to him.”

“Yes,” the One mused. “It is possible. I have-I have not forgotten her.”

“Tell the High Lord that Thomas Covenant has returned to the Land and seeks to attack the Grey Slayer. Tell him that Thomas Covenant has sworn to destroy Foul’s Creche.”

The One’s eyes widened at this. But Triock went on: “The message must be spoken now. I have been pursued. A blizzard will not prevent any eyes which could see the High Wood in my grasp.”

“Yes,” the tall man said once more. “Very well-I will begin. Perhaps it will bring this intrusion to an end.”

He turned as if dismissing Triock from his thoughts, and moved into the centre of his cave. Facing the entrance of the chamber, he gathered the Wraiths around him so that he was surrounded in light, and held the lomillialor rod up before his face with both hands. Quietly, he began to sing-a delicate, almost wordless melody that sounded strangely like a transposition, a rendering into human tones, of the Wraith song. As he sang, he closed his eyes, and his head tilted back until his forehead was raised toward the ceiling.

“Mhoram,” he murmured through the pauses in his song, “Mhoram. Son of Variol and Tamarantha. Open your heart to hear me.”

Triock stared at him, tense and entranced.

“Tamarantha-son, open your heart. Mhoram.”

Slowly, power began to gleam from the core of the smooth rod.

The next.instant, Triock heard feet behind him. Something about them, something deadly and abominable, snatched his attention, spun him toward the entrance to the chamber.

A voice as harsh as the breaking of stone grated, “Give it up. He cannot open his heart to you. He is caught in our power and will never open his heart again.”

Yeurquin stood just within the cave, eyes exalted with madness.

The sight stunned Triock. Yeurquin’s frozen apparel had been partially torn from him, and wherever his flesh was bare the skin hung in frostbitten tatters. The blizzard had clawed his face and hands to the bone. But no blood came from his wounds.

He bore Quirrel in his arms. Her head dangled abjectly from her broken neck.

When he saw Yeurquin, the Unfettered One recoiled as if he had been struck-reeled backward and staggered against the opposite wall of the cave, gaping in soundless horror.

Together, the Wraiths fled, screaming.

“Yeurquin.” The death and wrong which shone from the man made Triock gag. He croaked the name as if he were strangling on it. “Yeurquin?”

Yeurquin laughed with a ragged, nauseating sound. In gleeful savagery, he dropped Quirrel to the floor and stepped past her. “We meet at last,” he rasped to Triock. ” I have laboured for this encounter. I think I will make you pay for that labour.”

“Yeurquin?” Staggering where he stood, Triock could see that the man should have been dead; the storm damage he had suffered was too great for anyone to survive. But some force animated him, some ferocity that relished his death kept him moving. He was an incarnated nightmare.

The next moment, the Unfettered One mastered his shock, rushed forward. Wielding the lomillialor before him like a weapon, he cried hoarsely, ” Turiya Raver! Tree foe! I know you-I have seen you. Melenkurion abatha! Leave this place. Your touch desecrates the very Earth.”

Yeurquin winced under the flick of the potent words. But they did not daunt him. “Better dead feet like mine than idiocy like yours,” he smirked. “I think I will not leave this place until I have tasted your blood, Unfettered wastrel. You are so quick to give your life to nothing. Now you will give it to me.”

The One did not flinch. “I will give you nothing but the lomillialor test of truth. Even you have cause to fear that, Turiya Raver. The High Wood will burn you to the core.”

“Fool!” the Raver laughed. “You have lived here so long that you have forgotten the meaning of power!”

Fearlessly, he started toward the two men.

With a sharp cry, Triock threw off his stunned dismay. Sweeping his sword from its scabbard, he sprang at the Raver.

Yeurquin knocked him effortlessly aside, sent him careening to smack his head against the wall. Then Turiya closed with the Unfettered One.

Pain slammed through Triock, flooded his mind with blood. Gelid agony shrieked in his chest where the Raver had struck him. But for one moment, he resisted unconsciousness, lurched to his feet. In torment, he saw turiya and the Unfettered One fighting back and forth, both grasping the High Wood. Then the Raver howled triumphantly. Bolts of sick, red-green power shot up through the Unfettered One’s arms and shattered his chest.

When Triock plunged into darkness, the Raver had already started to dismember his victim. He was laughing all the while.