The Wounded Land

Twenty: The Quest

HE left the hold, left his companions, because he could not bear to watch the impenetrable nightmares writhe across Linden's mien. She was not afraid of his leprosy. She had supported him at every crisis. This was the result. No one could rouse her. She lay in a stupor like catatonia, and dreamed anguish.

He went toward the upland plateau because he needed to recover some kind of hope.

Already, the frenzy of his power had begun to recoil against him. Vain's smile haunted him like an echo of horror and scorn. His rescue from Stonemight Woodhelven was no different than this. How many people had he killed? He had no control over his power. Power and venom controlled him.

Yet he did not release the wild magic. Revelstone was still full of Riders. He glimpsed them running past the ends of long halls, preparing themselves for defence or counterattack. He did not have enough blood in his veins to sustain himself without the fire of his ring: once he dropped his power, he would be beyond any self-protection. He would have to trust the Haruchai to save him, save his friends. And that thought also was bitter to him. Banner's people had paid such severe prices in his name. How could he permit them to serve him again?

How many people had he killed?

Shedding flames like tears, he climbed up through the levels of Revelstone toward the plateau.

And Brinn strode at his side as if the Haruchai had already committed himself to this service. Somewhere he had found a cloak which he now draped across Covenant's shoulders. The

Unbeliever shrugged it into place, hardly noticing. It helped to protect him against the shock of blood-loss.

Covenant needed hope. He had gained much from the soothtell; but those insights paled beside the shock of Linden's straits, paled beside the mounting self-abomination of what he had done with his power. He had not known he was so capable of slaughter. He could not face the demands of his new knowledge without some kind of hope.

He did not know where else to turn except to Glimmermere. To the Earthpower which remained still vital enough to provide Glimmermere with water, even when all the Land lay under a desert sun. To the blade which lay in the deeps of the lake.

Loric's krill.

He did not want it because it was a weapon. He wanted it because it was an alternative, a tool of power which might prove manageable enough to spare him any further reliance upon his ring.

And he wanted it because Vain's grin continued to knell through his head. In that grin, he had seen Vain's makers, the roynish and cruel beings he remembered. They had lied to Foamfollower. Vain's purpose was not greatly to be desired. It was the purpose of a fiend. Covenant had seen Vain kill, seen himself kill, and knew the truth.

And Loric, who was Kevin's father, had been called Vilesilencer. He had formed the krill to stem the harm of Vain's ancestors. Perhaps the krill would provide an answer to Vain.

That, too, was a form of hope. Covenant needed hope. When he reached the open plateau, the brightness of his power made the night seem as black and dire as Vain's obsidian flesh.

No one had been able to rouse Linden. She was caught in the toils of a heinous nightmare, and could not fight free. What evil had been practiced upon her?

And how many people had he killed? He, who had sworn never to kill again, and had not kept that oath. How many?

His own fire blinded him; he could not see any stars. The heavens gaped over him like a leper's doom. How could any man who lacked simple human sensitivity hope to control wild magic? The wild magic which destroys peace. He felt numb, and full of venom, and could not help himself.

Wrapped in argent like a new incarnation of the Sunbane, he traversed the hills toward Glimmermere. The tarn was hidden by the terrain; but he knew his way.

Brinn walked beside him, and did not speak. The Haruchai seemed content to support whatever Covenant intended. In this same way, the Bloodguard had been content to serve the Lords. Their acceptance had cost them two thousand years without love or sleep or death. And it had cost them corruption; like Foamfollower, Banner had been forced to watch his people become the thing they hated. Covenant did not know how to accept Brinn's tacit offer. How could he risk repeating the fate of the Bloodguard? But he was in need, and did not know how to refuse.

Then he saw it: Glimmermere lying nestled among the hills. Its immaculate surface reflected his silver against the black night, so that the water looked like a swath of wild magic surrounded, about to be smothered, by the dark vitriol of ur-viles. Avid white which only made Vain grin. But Covenant's power was failing; he had lost too much blood; the reaction to what he had done was too strong. He lumbered stiff-kneed down to the water's edge, stood trembling at the rim of Glimmermere, and fought himself to remain alight just a little longer.

Fire and darkness sprang back at him from the water. He had bathed once in Glimmermere; but now he felt too tainted to touch this vestige of Earthpower. And he did not know the depth of the pool. High Lord Mhoram had thrown the krill here as an act of faith in the Land's future. Surely he had believed the blade to be beyond reach. Covenant would never be able to swim that far down. And he could not ask Brinn to do it. He felt dismayed by the implications of Brinn's companionship; he could not force himself to utter an active acceptance of Brinn's service. The krill seemed as distant as if it had never existed.

Perhaps none of this had ever existed. Perhaps he was merely demented, and Vain's grin was the leer of his insanity. Perhaps he was already dead with a knife in his chest, experiencing the hell his leprosy had created for him.

But when he peered past the flaming silver and midnight, he saw a faint echo from the depths. The krill. It replied to his power as it had replied when he had first awakened it. Its former arousal had led ineluctably to Elena's end and the breaking of the Law of Death. For a moment, he feared it, feared the keenness of its edges and the weight of culpability it implied. He had loved Elena-But the wild magic was worse. The venom was worse. He could not control them,

“How many-?” His voice tore the silence clenched in his throat. “How many of them did I kill?”

Brinn responded dispassionately out of the night, “One score and one, ur-Lord.”

Twenty-one? Oh, God!

For an instant, he thought that the sinews of his soul would rend, must rend, that his joints would be ripped asunder. But then a great shout of power blasted through his chest, and white flame erupted toward the heavens.

Glimmermere repeated the concussion. Suddenly, the whole surface of the lake burst into fire. Flame mounted in a gyre; the water of the lake whirled. And from the centre of the whirl came a clear white beam in answer to his call.

The krill rose into view. It shone, bright and inviolate, in the heart of the lake-a long double-edged dagger with a translucent gem forged into the cross of its guards and haft. The light came from its gem, reiterating Covenant's fire, as if the jewel and his ring were brothers. The night was cast back by its radiance, and by his power, and by the high flames of Glimmermere.

Still the krill was beyond reach. But he did not hesitate now. The whirl of the water and the gyring flames spoke to him of things which he understood: vertigo and paradox; the eye of stability in the core of the contradiction. Opening his arms to the fire, he stepped out into the lake.

Earthpower upheld him. Conflagration which replied to his conflagration spun around him and through him, and bore his weight. Floating like a flicker of shadow through the argence, he walked toward the centre of Glimmermere.

In his weakness, he felt that the fire would rush him out of himself, reduce him to motes of mortality and hurl him at the empty sky. The krill seemed more substantial than his flesh; the iron more full of meaning than his wan bones. But when he stooped to it and took hold of it, it lifted in his hands and arced upward, leaving a slash of brilliance across the night.

He clutched it to his chest and turned back toward Brinn.

Now his fatigue closed over him. No longer could he keep his power alight. The fingers of his will unclawed their grip and failed. At once, the flames of Glimmermere began to subside.

But still the lake upheld him. The Earthpower gave him this gift as it had once gifted Berek Halfhand's despair on the slopes of Mount Thunder. It sustained him, and did not let him go until he stumbled to the shore in darkness.

Night lay about him and in him. His eyes descried nothing but the dark as if they had been burned out of his head. Even the shining of the gem seemed to shed no illumination. Shorn now of power, he could no longer grasp the krill. It became hot in his hands, hot enough to touch the nerves which still lived. He dropped it to the ground, where it shone like the last piece of light in the world. Mutely, he knelt beside it, with his back to Glimmermere as if he had been humbled. He felt alone in the Land, and incapable of himself.

But he was not alone. Brinn tore a strip from his tunic-a garment made from an ochre material which resembled vellum-and wrapped the krill so that it could be handled. For a moment, he placed a gentle touch on Covenant's shoulder. Then he said quietly, “Ur-Lord, come. The Clave will attempt to strike against us. We must go.”

As the gleam of the krill was silenced, the darkness became complete. It was a balm to Covenant, solace for the aggrievement of power. He ached for it to go on assuaging him forever. But he knew Brinn spoke the truth. Yes, he breathed. We must go. Help me.

When he raised his head, he could see the stars. They glittered as if only their own beauty could console them for their loneliness. The moon was rising. It was nearly full.

In silence and moonlight, Covenant climbed to his feet and began to carry his exhaustion back toward Revelstone.

After a few steps, he accepted the burden of the krill from Brinn and tucked it under his belt. Its warmth rested there like a comfort against the knotted self-loathing in his stomach.

Stumbling and weary, he moved without knowing how he could ever walk as far as Revelstone. But Brinn aided him, supported him when he needed help, let him carry himself when he could. After a time that passed, like the sequences of delirium, they gained the promontory and the mouth of the na-Mhoram's Keep.

One of the Haruchai awaited them outside the tunnel which led down into Revelstone. As Covenant lurched to a halt, the Haruchai bowed; and Brinn said, “Ur-Lord, this is Ceer.”

“Ur-Lord,” Ceer said.

Covenant blinked at Mm, but could not respond. He seemed to have no words left.

Expressionlessly, Ceer extended a leather pouch toward him.

He accepted it. When he unstopped the pouch, he recognized the smell of metheglin. At once, he began to drink. His drained body was desperate for fluid. Desperate. He did not lower the pouch until it was empty.

“Ur-Lord,” Ceer said then, “the Clave gathers about the Banefire. We harry them, and they make no forays-but there is great power in their hands. And four more of the Haruchai have been slain. We have guided all prisoners from Revelstone. We watch over them as we can. Yet they are not safe. The Clave holds coercion to sway our minds, if they but choose to exert it. We know this to our cost. We must flee.”

Yes, Covenant mumbled inwardly. Flee. I know. But when he spoke, the only word he could find was, “Linden-?”

Without inflection, Ceer replied, “She has awakened.”

Covenant did not realize that he had fallen until he found himself suspended in Brinn's arms. For a long moment, he could not force his legs to straighten. But the metheglin helped him. Slowly, he took his own weight, stood upright again.

“How-?”

“Ur-Lord, we strove to wake her.” Suppressing the lilt of his native tongue to speak Covenant's language made Ceer sound completely detached. “But she lay as the dead, and would not be succoured. We bore her from the Keep, knowing not what else to do. Yet your black companion-” He paused, asking for a name.

“Vain,” Covenant said, almost choking on the memory of that grin. “He's an ur-vile.”

A slight contraction of his eyebrows expressed Ceer's surprise; but he did not utter his thoughts aloud. “Vain,” he resumed, “stood by unheeding for a time. But then of a sudden he approached Linden Avery the Chosen.” Dimly, Covenant reflected that the Haruchai must already have spoken to Sunder or Hollian. “Knowing nothing of him, we strove to prevent him. But he cast us aside as if we were not who we are. He knelt to the Chosen, placed his hand upon her. She awakened.”

A groan of incomprehension and dread twisted Covenant's throat; but Ceer went on. “Awakening, she cried out and sought to flee. She did not know us. But the Stonedownors your companions comforted her. And still”- a slight pause betrayed Ceer's uncertainty — "Vain had not done. Ur-Lord, he bowed before her-he, who is heedless of the Haruchai, and deaf to all speech. He placed his forehead upon her feet.

“This was fear to her,” Ceer continued. “She recoiled to the arms of the Stonedownors. They also do not know this Vain. But they stood to defend her if need be. He rose to his feet, and there he stands yet, still unheeding, as a man caught in the coercion of the Clave. He appears no longer conscious of the Chosen, or of any man or woman.”

Ceer did not need to speak his thought; Covenant could read it in his flat eyes.

We do not trust this Vain.

But Covenant set aside the question of Vain. The krill was warm against his belly; and he had no strength for distractions. His path was clear before him, had been clear ever since he had absorbed the meaning of the soothtell. And Linden was awake. She had been restored to him. Surely now he could hold himself together long enough to set his purpose in motion.

Yet he took the time for one more inquiry. “How is she?”

Ceer shrugged fractionally. “She has gazed upon the face of Corruption. Yet she speaks clearly to the Stonedownors.” He paused, then said, “She is your companion. You have redeemed us from abomination. While we live, she and all your companions will suffer no further hurt.” He looked toward Brinn. “But she has warned us of a Raver. Ur-Lord, surely we must flee.”

A Raver, thought Covenant. Gibbon. Yes.

What did he do to her? The nightmare on her face was still vivid to him. What did that bastard do to her?

Without a word, he locked himself erect, and started stiffly down the tunnel into Revelstone.

The way was long; but metheglin and darkness sustained him. Vain's grin sustained him. The Demondim-spawn had awakened her? Had knelt to her? The ur-viles must have lied to Foamfollower. Hamako's rhysh must have been mistaken or misled. Did Vain bow in acknowledgment of Gibbon's effect on her?

What did that bastard do to her?

If Covenant had doubted his purpose before, or had doubted himself, he was sure now. No Clave or distance or impossibility was going to stand in his way.

Down through the city he went, like a tight curse. Down past Haruchai who scouted the city and watched the Riders. Down to the gates, and the passage under the watchtower. He had already killed twenty-one people; he felt that for himself he had nothing left to fear. His fear was for his companions; and his curse was for the Despiser. His purpose was clear.

As he moved through the tunnel, a score of Haruchai gathered 'around him like an honour-guard. They bore supplies which they had scoured from Revelstone for the flight of the prisoners.

With them, he passed the broken outer gates into the night.

Below him on the rocky slope of the foothill burned a large bonfire. Stark against the massed jungle beyond it, it flamed with a loud crepitation, fighting the rain-drenched green wood which the Haruchai fed to it. Its yellow light enclosed all the prisoners, defending them from darkness.

He could see a group of Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin huddling uncertainly near the fire. Haruchai moved around the area, preparing supplies, wresting more firewood from the jungle, standing watch. Vain stood motionless among them. Sunder, Hollian, and Linden sat close together as if to comfort each other.

He had eyes only for Linden. Her back was to him. He hardly noticed that all Brinn's people had turned toward him and dropped to one knee, as if he had been announced by silent trumpets. With the dark citadel rising behind him, he went woodenly toward Linden's back as if he meant to fall at her feet.

Sunder saw him, spoke quickly to Linden and Hollian. The Stonedownors jumped upright and faced Covenant as if he came bearing life and death. More slowly, Linden, too, climbed erect. He could read nothing but pain in the smudged outlines of her mien. But her eyes recognized him. A quiver like urgency ran through her. He could not stop himself. He surged to her, wrapped his arms around her, hid his face in her hair.

Around him, the Haruchai went back to their tasks.

For a moment, she returned his embrace as if she were grateful for it. Then, suddenly, she stiffened. Her slim, abused body became nausea in his arms. He tried to speak, but could not, could not sever the knots in his chest. When she tried to pull away from him, he let her go; and still he could not speak. She did not meet his stare. Her gaze wandered his frame to the old cut in the centre of his shirt. “You're sick.”

Sick? Momentarily, he failed to understand her. “Linden-?”

“Sick.” Her voice trailed like blood between her lips. “Sick.” Moving as if she were stunned by abhorrence or grief, she turned her back on him. She sank to the ground, covered her face with her hands, began to rock back and forth. Faintly, he heard her murmuring, “Sick. Sick.”

His leprosy.

The sight almost tore away his last strength. If he could have found his voice, he would have wailed, What did that bastard do to you? But he had come too far and had too many responsibilities. The pressure of the krill upheld him. Clenching himself as if he, too, could not be touched, he looked at Sunder and Hollian.

They seemed abashed by Linden's reaction. “Ur-Lord,” Sunder began tentatively, then faltered into silence. The weal around his neck appeared painful; but he ignored it. Old frown-marks bifurcated his forehead as if he were caught between rage and fear, comradeship and awe, and wanted Covenant to clarify them for him. His jaws chewed words he did not know how to utter.

“Ur-Lord,” Hollian said for him, “she has been sorely hurt in some way. I know not how, for Gibbon na-Mhoram said to her, 'You I must not harm.' Yet an anguish torments her,” Her pale features asked Covenant to forgive Linden.

Dumbly, he wondered where the eh-Brand found her courage. She was hardly more than a girl, and her perils often seemed to terrify her. Yet she had resources-She was a paradox of fright and valour; and she spoke when Sunder could not.

“You have bought back our lives from the na-Mhoram,” she went on, “at what cost to yourself I cannot know. I know not how to behold such power as you wield. But I have tasted the coercion of the Riders, and the imprisonment of the Clave. I thank you from my heart. I pray I may be given opportunity to serve you.”

Serve-? Covenant groaned. How can I let you serve me? You don't know what I'm going to do. Yet he could not refuse her. Somewhere in his own inchoate struggle of need and conviction, he had already accepted the service of the Haruchai, though their claim on his forbearance was almost forty centuries older than hers. Gripping himself rigid because he knew that if he bent he would break, he asked the only question he could articulate in the poverty of his courage. “Are you all right?”

She glanced at Sunder, at his neck. When he nodded, she replied, “It is nothing. A little hunger and fear. We are acquainted with such things. And,” she continued more strongly, “we have been blessed with more than our lives. The Haruchai are capable of wonders.” With a gesture, she indicated three of Brinn's people who stood nearby. “Ur-Lord, here are Cail, Stell, and Harn.” The three sketched bows toward Covenant.

“When we were guided from the hold, I was content with my life. But the Haruchai were not content.” Reaching into her robe, she brought out her dirk and Iianar. “They sought throughout Revelstone and recovered these for me. Likewise they recovered Sunder's Sunstone and blade.” Sunder agreed. Covenant wondered vaguely at the new intimacy which allowed Hollian to speak for Sunder. How much had they been through together? “How does it come to pass,” Hollian concluded, “that the Land has so forgotten the Haruchai?”

“You know nothing of us,” the one named Harn responded. “We know nothing of you. We would not have known to seek your belongings, had not Memla na-Mhoram-in revealed that they had been taken from you.”

Memla, Covenant thought. Yes. Another piece of his purpose became momentarily lucid. “Brinn.” The night seemed to be gathering around him. Sunder and Hollian had drifted out of focus. “Find her. Tell her what we need.”

“Her?” Brinn asked distantly. “What is it that we need?”

Until he understood the question, Covenant did not perceive that he was losing consciousness. He had lost too much blood. The darkness on all sides was creeping toward vertigo. Though he yearned to let himself collapse, he lashed out with curses until he had brought his head up again, reopened his eyes.

“Memla,” he said thickly. “Tell her we need Coursers.”

“Yes, ur-Lord.” Brinn did not move. But two or three Haruchai left the fire and loped easily up toward the watchtower.

Someone placed a bowl of metheglin in Covenant's hands. He drank it, tried to squeeze a semblance of clarity into his vision, and found himself staring at Vain.

The Demondim-spawn stood with his arms slightly bent, as if he were ready to commit acts which could not be foreseen. His black eyes stared at nothing; the ghoul grin was gone from his black lips. But he still wore the heels of the Staff of Law, one on his right wrist, the other on his left ankle. The burns he had received two nights ago were almost healed.

As a man caught in the coercion — Was that it? Was the Clave responsible for Vain? Ur-viles serving the Clave? How far did the na-Mhoram's mendacity extend? Vain's blackness echoed the night. How had he roused Linden? And why? Covenant wanted to rage at the Demondim-spawn. But he himself had killed-without control or even reluctance. He lacked the rectitude to unravel Vain's intent. There was too much blood on his head.

And not enough in his veins. He was failing. The illumination cast by the bonfire seemed to shrink around him. He had so little time left-Listen, he started to say. This is what we're going to do. But his voice made no sound.

His hand groped for Brinn's shoulder. Help me. I've got to hold on. A little longer.

“Covenant.”

Linden's voice tugged him back into focus. She stood before him. Somehow, she had pulled herself out of her inner rout. Her eyes searched him. “I thought I saw-” She regarded the wild tangle of his beard as if it had prevented her from identifying him earlier. Then her gaze found the thick red scars on his wrists. A sharp gasp winced through her teeth.

At once, she grabbed his forearms, drew his wrists into the light. “I was right. You've lost blood. A lot of it.” Her physician's training rose up in her. She studied him, gauging his condition with her eyes and hands. “You need a transfusion.”

The next moment, she perceived the newness of the scars. Her gaze jumped to his face. “What did they do to you?”

At first, he could not respond. The soothtell was too exigent; he felt unable to bear the answer she needed.

But she misunderstood his silence. Abomination stretched her visage. “Did you-?”

Her apprehension broke him out of his paralysis. “No. Not that. They did it to me. I'll be all right.”

A sag of relief softened her expression. But her eyes did not leave his face. She struggled for words as if the conflict of her emotions blocked her throat. Finally, she said hoarsely, "I heard you shout. We almost got free.“ Her stare drifted out of focus, turned inward. ”For a while, I would have given my soul to hear you shout again.“ But memories made her flee outward again. ”Tell me-“ she began, fighting for severity as if it were essential to her. ”Tell me what happened to you."

He shook his head. “I'm all right.” What else could he say? “Gibbon wanted blood. I didn't have a chance to refuse.” He knew that he should explain, that all his companions needed to know what he had learned in the soothtell. But he had no strength.

As if to spare Covenant the necessity of speech, Brinn said flatly, “The ur-Lord's life was forfeit in the soothtell. Yet with wild magic he healed himself.”

At that, Linden's orbs darkened. Her lips echoed soundlessly, Healed? Her gaze dropped to the old scar behind the cut in his shirt. The recovery of determination which had drawn her out of herself seemed to crumple. Losses which he could not begin to understand overflowed from her eyes. She turned away from him, turned her face toward the night. “Then you don't need me.”

Hollian reached out to her. Like a child, Linden put her arms around Hollian's neck and buried her face in the eh-Brand's shoulder.

Covenant did not react. The pressure of his rage and grief was all that stood between him and darkness. He could not move without falling. What did that bastard do to you?

“Ur-Lord,” Brinn said, “we must not delay. The na-Mhoram was not slain. Surely the Clave will soon strike against us.”

“I know.” Covenant's heart was crying uselessly, Linden! and hot streaks of self-reproach ran from his eyes; but his voice was adamantine. “We'll go. As soon as Memla gets here.” He did not doubt that Memla would come. She had no choice; she had already betrayed the Clave for him. Too many people had already done too much for him.

“That is well,” Brinn replied. “Where will we go?”

Covenant did not falter. He was sure of what he had to do. His Dead had prepared him for this. “To find the One Tree. I'm going to make a new Staff of Law.”

His auditors fell abruptly silent. Incomprehension clouded Hollian's face. Sunder frowned as if he wanted to speak but could not find the right words. The knot of Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin held themselves still. Vain betrayed no flicker of interest. But the eyes of the Haruchai shone.

“The old tellers,” Brinn said slowly, “relate that the Lords, even at the time of Kevin, had a legend of the One Tree, from which the Staff of Law was made. Ur-Lord Covenant, you conceive a bold undertaking. You will be accompanied. But how will you seek the One Tree? We have no knowledge of it.”

No knowledge, Covenant breathed wanly. He had guessed as much. South of the Land lay the lifeless Grey Desert. In the north, the long winter of the Northron Climbs was said to be impassable. And to the west, where the Haruchai lived, there was no knowledge of the One Tree. He accepted that. If Berek had gone west to find the One Tree, he would surely have encountered Brinn's people. With an effort, Covenant answered, “Neither do I. But we'll go east. To the Sea.” Where the Giants had come from. “To get away from the Clave. After that-I don't know.”

Brinn nodded. “It is good. This the Haruchai will do. Cail, Stell, Ceer, Harn, Hergrom, and myself will share your quest, to ward you and your companions. Two score will return to our people, to give them the knowledge we have gained.” His voice sharpened slightly. “And to consider our reply to the depredations of this Clave. Those who remain will see these Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin to their homes-if such aid is desired.”

The faces of the nine freed people of the Land expressed immediately their eagerness to accept Brinn's offer.

“The old tellers speak much of the Giants-of their fidelity and laughter, and of their dying,” Brinn concluded. “Gladly will we look upon their home and upon the Sea which they loved.”

Now, Covenant said to himself. If ever he intended to refuse the Haruchai, escape his being dependent on and responsible for them again after four thousand years, now was the time. But he could not. He was no longer able to stand without Brinn's support. Isn't it bad enough, he groaned, that I'm the one who destroyed the Staff? Opened the door for the Sunbane? Do I have to carry this, too? But he needed the Haruchai and could not refuse.

For a moment, the night reeled; but then he felt hands touch his chest, and saw Sunder standing before him. The Graveller held his chin up, exposing his damaged neck as if with that injury he had earned answers. His eyes reflected the firelight like the echoing of his torn mind.

“Covenant,” he said in a clenched tone, using that name instead of the title ur-Lord, as if he sought to cut through awe and power and command to the man behind them. “I have journeyed far in your name, and will journey farther. But there is fear in me. The eh-Brand foretells a sun of pestilence-after but two days of rain. In freeing us, you have damaged the Clave. And now the Sunbane quickens. Perhaps you have done such harm that the Clave can no longer moderate the Sunbane. Perhaps you have wrought a great peril for the Land.”

Covenant heard the personal urgency of Sunder's question; but for a time he lacked the fortitude to reply. Sunder's doubt pained him, weakened him. His veins were empty of life, and his muscles could no longer support him. Even the warmth of the krill under his belt had faded into his general inurement. But Sunder was his friend. The Graveller had already sacrificed too much for him. Fumbling among his frailties, he gave the first answer he found.

“The na-Mhoram is a Raver. Like Marid.”

But that did not satisfy Sunder. “So Linden Avery has said. Yet the Clave moderated the Sunbane for the sake of the Land, and now that moderation has been weakened.”

“No,” Somewhere within him. Covenant discovered a moment of strength. “The Clave doesn't moderate the Sunbane. They've been using it to hurt the Land. Feeding it with blood. They've been serving Lord Foul for centuries.”

Sunder stared; incredulity seemed to hurt his face. Covenant's asseveration violated everything he had ever believed. “Covenant.” Dismay scarred his voice. His hands made imploring gestures. “How can it be true? It is too much. How can I know that it is true?”

“Because I say it's true.” The moment passed, leaving Covenant as weary as death. “I paid for that soothtell with my blood. And I was here. Four thousand years ago. When the Land was healthy. What the Clave taught you is something they made up to justify all that bloodshed.” A distant part of him saw what he was doing, and protested. He was identifying himself with the truth, making himself responsible for it. Surely no man could keep such a promise. Hile Troy had tried-and had lost his soul to the Forestal of Garroting Deep as a consequence.

“Then-” Sunder wrestled for comprehension. His features showed horror at the implications of what Covenant said-horror turning to rage, “Then why do you not fight? Destroy the Clave-end this ill? If they are such an abomination?”

Covenant drooped against Brinn. “I'm too weak.” He hardly heard himself. “And I've already killed-” A spasm of grief twisted his face. Twenty-one people! “I swore I would never kill again.” But for Sunder's sake, he made one more effort to articulate what he believed. “I don't want to fight them until I stop hating them.”

Slowly, the Graveller nodded. The bonfire became a roaring in Covenant's ears. For an instant of giddiness, he thought that Sunder was Nassic. Nassic with young, sane eyes. The Graveller, too, was capable of things which humbled Covenant.

There was movement around him. People were readying themselves for departure. They saluted him; but his numbness prevented him from responding. Escorted by nearly a score of Haruchai, they left the foothills. He did not watch them go. He hung on the verges of unconsciousness and fought to remain alive.

For a time, he drifted along the current of the bonfire. But then he felt himself turned in Brinn's arms, gently shaken erect. He pried his eyes wide, scraped his eyelids across the sabulous exhaustion in his gaze, and saw Memla.

She stood grimly before him. Her chasuble was gone, and her robe had been singed in places. Her age-stained hair straggled about her shoulders. Fire blisters marred her right cheek; her blunt features were battered. But her eyes were angry, and she faced Covenant with her rukh held ready.

At her back champed five of the Clave's huge Coursers.

Brinn nodded to her. “Memla na-Mhoram-in,” he said flatly. “The ur-Lord has awaited you.”

She gave Brinn a gesture of recognition without taking her eyes from Covenant. Her gruff voice both revealed and controlled her wrath. “I cannot live with lies. I will accompany you.”

Covenant had no words for her. Mutely, he touched his right hand to his heart, then raised the palm toward her.

“I have brought Coursers,” she said. “They were not well defended-but well enough to hamper me. Only five could I wrest from so many of the na-Mhoram-cro.” The beasts were laden with supplies. “They are Din, Clang, Clangor, Annoy, and Clash.”

Covenant nodded. His head went on bobbing feebly, as if the muscles of his neck had fallen into caducity.

She gripped his gaze. “But one matter must be open between us. With my rukh, I can wield the Banefire to aid our journey. This the Clave cannot prevent. But I in turn cannot prevent them from knowing where I am and what I do, through my rukh. Halfhand.” Her tone took on an inflection of appeal. “I do not wish to set aside the sole power I possess.”

Her honesty and courage demanded an answer. With an effort that defocused his eyes and made his head spin, he said, “Keep it. I'll take the chance.”

His reply softened her features momentarily. “When first we met,” she said, “your misdoubt was just, though I knew it not. Yet trust is preferable.” Then, abruptly, she stiffened again. “But we must depart. Gibbon has gathered the Clave at the Banefire. While we delay, they raise the Grim against us.”

The Grim! Covenant could not block the surge of his dismay. It carried him over the edge, and he plunged like dead stone into darkness.

As he fell, he heard a cold wail from Revelstone-a cry like the keening of the great Keep, promising loss and blood. Or perhaps the wail was within himself.

Twenty One: Sending

SOMETIME during the night, he wandered close to consciousness. He was being rocked on the back of a Courser. Arms reached around him from behind and knotted together over his heart. They supported him like bands of stone. Haruchai arms.

Someone said tensely, “Are you not a healer? You must succour him.”

“No.” Linden's reply sounded small and wan, and complete. It made him moan deep in his throat.

Glints of rukh-fire hurt his eyes. When he shut out the sight, he faded away once more.

The next time he looked up, he saw the grey of dawn in fragments through the monstrous jungle. The lightening of the sky lay directly ahead of him. He was mounted on Din, with Memla before him and Brinn behind. Another Courser, carrying Ceer and Hergrom, led the way along the line Memla created with her rukh. The rest of the company followed Din.

As Covenant fumbled toward wakefulness, Memla's path ran into an area of relatively clear ground under the shade of a towering stand of rhododendron. There she halted. Over her shoulder, she called to the company, “Remain mounted. The Coursers will spare us from the Sunbane.”

Behind him, Covenant heard Sunder mutter, “Then it is true-”

But Hergrom dropped to the ground, began to accept supplies handed down by Ceer; and Brinn said, “The Haruchai do not share this need to be warded.”

Immune? Covenant wondered dimly. Yes. How else had so many of them been able to reach Revelstone unwarped?

Then the sun began to rise, sending spangles of crimson and misery through the vegetation. Once again, the eh-Brand had foretold the Sunbane accurately.

When the first touch of the sun was past, Memla ordered the Coursers to their knees, controlling them all with her command. The company began to dismount.

Covenant shrugged off Brinn's help and tried to stand alone. He found that he could. He felt as pale and weak as an invalid; but his muscles were at least able to hold his weight.

Unsteadily, he turned to look back westward through the retreating night for some sign of the na-Mhoram's Grim.

The horizon seemed clear.

Near him, Sunder and Stell had descended from one Courser, Hollian and Harn from another. Cail helped Linden down from the fifth beast. Covenant faced her with his frailty and concern; but she kept her gaze to herself, locked herself in her loneliness as if the very nerves of her eyes, the essential marrow of her bones, had been humiliated past bearing.

He left her alone. He did not know what to do, and felt too tenuous to do it.

While the Haruchai prepared food for the company-dried meat, bread, fruit, and metheglin- Memla produced from one of her sacks a large leather pouch of distilled voure, the pungent sap Covenant's friends had once used to ward off insects under the sun of pestilence. Carefully, she dabbed the concentrate on each, of her companions, excluding only Vain. Covenant nodded at her omission. Perhaps rukh-fire could harm the Demondim-spawn. The Sunbane could not.

Covenant ate slowly and thoroughly, feeding his body's poverty. But all the time, a weight of apprehension impended toward him from the west. He had seen During Stonedown, had seen what the Grim could do. With an effort, he found his voice to ask Memla how long the raising of a Grim took.

She was clearly nervous. “That is uncertain,” she muttered. “The size of the Grim, and its range, must be considered.” Her gaze flicked to his face, leaving an almost palpable mark of anxiety across his cheek. “I read them. Here.” Her hands tightened on her rukh. “It will be very great.”

Very great, Covenant murmured. And he was so weak. He pressed his hands to the krill, and tried to remain calm.

A short time later, the company remounted. Memla drew on the Banefire to open a way for the huge Coursers. Again, Hergrom and Ceer-on Annoy, Memla said: the names of the beasts seemed important to her, as if she loved them in her blunt fashion-went first, followed by Covenant, Brinn, and the Rider on Din, then by Cail and Linden on Clash, Sunder and Stell on Clang, Harn and Hollian on Clangor. Vain brought up the rear as if he were being sucked along without volition in the wake of the Coursers.

Covenant dozed repeatedly throughout the day. He had been too severely drained; he could not keep himself awake. Whenever the company paused for food, water, and rest, he consumed all the aliment he was given, striving to recover some semblance of strength. But between stops the rocking of Din's stride unmoored his awareness, so that he rode tides of dream and dread and insects, and could not anchor himself.

In periods of wakefulness, he knew from the rigidity of Mania's back that she wanted to flee and flee, and never stop. She, too, knew vividly what the Grim could do. But, toward evening, her endurance gave out. Under the shelter of a prodigious Gilden, she halted the quest for the night.

At first, while she started a fire, the air thronged with flying bugs of every description; and the boughs and leaves of the tree seethed with things which crawled and bored. But voure protected the company. And gradually, as dusk seeped into the jungle, macerating the effect of the Sunbane, the insects began to disappear.

Their viscid stridulation faded as they retreated into gestation or sleep. Memla seated her weary bones beside the fire, dismissed the Coursers, and let the Haruchai care for her companions.

Sunder and Hollian seemed tired, as if they had not slept for days; but they were sturdy, with funds of stamina still untapped. Though they knew of the Grim, at least by rumour, their relief at escaping Revelstone outweighed their apprehension. They stood and moved together as if their imprisonment had made them intimate. Sunder seemed to draw ease from the eh-Brand, an anodyne for his old self-conflicts; her youth and her untormented sense of herself were a balm to the Graveller, who had shed his own wife and son and had chosen to betray his people for Covenant's sake. And she, in turn, found support and encouragement in his knotted resourcefulness, his determined struggle for conviction. They both had lost so much; Covenant was relieved to think that they could comfort each other. He could not have given them comfort.

But their companionship only emphasized Linden's isolation in his eyes. The Raver had done something to her. And Covenant, who had experience with such things, dreaded knowing what it was-and dreaded the consequences of not knowing.

As he finished his meal, he arrived at the end of his ability to support his ignorance. He was sitting near the fire. Memla rested, half-asleep, on one side of him. On the other sat Sunder and Hollian. Four of the Haruchai stood guard beyond the tree. Brinn and Cail moved silently around the fringes of the Gilden, alert for peril. Vain stood at the edge of the light like the essence of all black secrets. And among them, across the fire from Covenant, Linden huddled within herself, with her arms clasped around her knees and her eyes fixed on the blaze, as if she were a complete stranger.

He could not bear it. He had invested so much hope in her and knew so little about her; he had to know why she was so afraid. But he had no idea how to confront her. Her hidden wound made her untouchable. So for his own sake, as well as for the sake of his companions, he cleared his throat and began to tell his tale.

He left nothing out. From Andelain and the Dead to Stonemight Woodhelven, from Vain's violence to Bamako's rhysh, from his run across the Centre Plains to Memla's revelation of the Clave's mendacity, he told it all. And then he described the soothtell as fully as he could. His hands would not remain still as he spoke; so much of the memory made him writhe. He tugged at his beard, knitted his fingers together, clutched his left fist over his wedding band, and told his friends what he had witnessed.

He understood now why the Raver had been willing to let him see the truth of the Land's history. Lord Foul wanted him to perceive the fetters of action and consequence which bound him to his guilt, wanted him to blame himself for the destruction of the Staff, and for the Sunbane, and for every life the Clave sacrificed. So that he would founder in culpability, surrender his ring in despair and self-abhorrence. Lord Foul, who laughed at lepers. At the last there will be but one choice for you. In that context, the venom in him made sense. It gave him power he could not control. Power to kill people. Guilt. It was a prophecy of his doom-a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That, too, he explained, hoping Linden would raise her eyes, look at him, try to understand. But she did not. Her mouth stretched into severity; but she held to her isolation. Even when he detailed how the seeds planted by his Dead had led him to conceive a quest for the One Tree, intending to make a new Staff of Law so that thereby he could oppose Lord Foul and contest the Sunbane without self-abandonment, even then she did not respond. Finally, he fell silent, bereft of words.

For a time, the company remained still with him. No one asked any questions; they seemed unwilling to probe the pain he had undergone. But then Sunder spoke. To answer Covenant, he told what had happened to Linden, Hollian, and him after Covenant had entered Andelain.

He described Santonin and the Stonemight, described the Rider's coercion, described the way in which he and Hollian had striven to convince Gibbon that Covenant was lost or dead. But after that, he had not much to tell. He had been cast into a cell with little food and water, and less hope. Hollian's plight had been the same. Both had heard the clamour of Covenant's first entrance into the hold, and nothing more.

Then Covenant thought that surely Linden would speak. Surely she would complete her part of the tale. But she did not. She hid her face against her knees and sat huddled there as if she were bracing herself against a memory full of whips.

“Linden.” How could he leave her alone? He needed the truth from her. “Now you know how Kevin must have felt.”

Kevin Landwaster, last of Berek's line. Linden had said, I don't believe in evil. Kevin also had tried not to believe in evil. He had unwittingly betrayed the Land by failing to perceive Lord Foul's true nature in time, and had thereby set the Despiser on the path to victory. Thus he had fallen into despair. Because of what he had done, he had challenged the Despiser to the Ritual of Desecration, hoping to destroy Lord Foul by reaving the Land. But in that, too, he had failed. He had succeeded at laying waste the Land he loved, and at losing the Staff of Law; but Lord Foul had endured.

All this Covenant told her. “Don't you see?” he said, imploring her to hear him. “Despair is no answer. It's what Foul lives on. Whatever happened to you, it doesn't have to be like this.” Linden, listen to me!

But she did not listen, gave no sign that she was able to hear him. If he had not seen the shadows of distress shifting behind her eyes, he might have believed that she had fallen back into the coma which Gibbon had levied upon her.

Sunder sat glowering as if he could not choose between his empathy for Linden and his understanding of Covenant. Hollian's dark eyes were blurred with tears. Brinn and Cail watched as if they were the models for Vain's impassivity. None of them offered Covenant any help.

He tried a different tack. “Look at Vain.” Linden! “Tell me what you see.”

She did not respond.

“I don't know whether or not I can trust him. I don't have your eyes. I need you to tell me what he is.”

She did not move. But her shoulders tautened as if she were screaming within herself.

“That old man.” His voice was choked by need and fear. “On Haven Farm. You saved his life. He told you to Be true.”

She flinched. Jerking up her head, she gaped at him with eyes as injured as if they had been gouged into the clenched misery of her soul. Then she was on her feet, fuming like a magma of bitterness. “You!” she cried. “You keep talking about desecration. This is your doing. Why did you have to sell yourself for Joan? Why did you have to get us into this? Don't you call that desecration?”

“Linden.” Her passion swept him upright; but he could not reach out to her. The fire lay between them as if she had lit it there in her fury.

“Of course you don't. You can't see. You don't know” Her hands clawed the air over her breasts as if she wanted to tear her flesh. “You think it will help if you go charging off on some crazy quest. Make a new Staff of Law.” She was savage with gall. “You don't count, and you don't even know it!”

He repeated her name. Sunder and Hollian had risen to their feet. Memla held her rukh ready, and Cail stood poised nearby, as if both Rider and Haruchai felt violence in the air.

“What did he do to you?” What did that bastard do to you?

“He said you don't count!” Abruptly, she was spouting words, hurling them at him as if he were the cause of her distress. “All they care about is your ring. The rest is me. He said, 'You have been especially chosen for this desecration. You are being forged as iron is forged to achieve the ruin of the Earth.'” Her voice thickened like blood around the memory, “Because I can see. That's how they're going to make me do what they want. By torturing me with what I see, and feel, and hear. You're making me do exactly what they want!”

The next instant, her outburst sprang to a halt. Her hands leaped to her face, trying to block out visions. Her body went rigid, as if she were on the verge of convulsions; a moan tore its way between her teeth. Then she sagged.

In desolation, she whispered, “He touched me.”

Touched-?

“Covenant.” She dropped her hands, let him see the full anguish in her visage. “You've got to get me out of here. Back to where I belong. Where my life means something. Before they make me kill you.”

“I know,” he said, because she had to have an answer. “That's another reason why I want to find the One Tree.” But within himself he felt suddenly crippled. You don't count. He had placed so much hope in her, in the possibility that she was free of Lord Foul's manipulations; and now that hope lay in wreckage. “The Lords used the Staff to call me here.” In one stroke, he had been reft of everything. “A Staff is the only thing I know of that can send us back.” Everything except the krill, and his old intransigence.

Especially chosen — Hell and blood! He wanted to cover his face; he could have wept like a child. But Linden's eyes clung to him desperately, trying to believe in him. Sunder and Hollian held each other against a fear they could not name. And Memla's countenance was blunt-moulded into a shape of sympathy, as if she knew what it meant to be discounted. Only the Haruchai appeared unmoved-the Haruchai, and Vain.

When Linden asked, “Your ring?” he met her squarely.

“I can't control it.”

Abruptly, Memla's expression became a flinch of surprise, as if he had uttered something appalling.

He ignored her. While his heart raged for grief, as if tears were a debt which he owed to his mortality and could not pay, he stretched out his arms. There in front of all his companions he gave himself a VSE.

Ah, you are stubborn yet.

Yes. By God. Stubborn.

Acting with characteristic detached consideration, Brinn handed Covenant a pouch of metheglin. Covenant lifted it between himself and his friends, so that they could not see his face, and drank it dry. Then he walked away into the darkness around the Gilden, used the night to hide him. After a time, he lay down among the things he had lost, and closed his eyes.

Brinn roused him with the dawn, got him to his feet in time to meet the second rising of the sun of pestilence, protected by his boots. The rest of the quest was already awake. Sunder and Hollian had joined Memla on pieces of stone; the Haruchai were busy preparing food; Linden stood gazing at the approaching incarnadine. Her face was sealed against its own vulnerability; but when she noticed Covenant, her eyes acknowledged him sombrely. After the conflicts of the previous evening, her recognition touched him like a smile.

He found that he felt stronger. But with recovery came a renewal of fear. The na-Mhoram's Grim-

Memla bore herself as if throughout the night she had not forgotten that peril. Her aging features were lined with apprehension, and her hands trembled on her rukh. To answer Covenant's look, she murmured, “Still he raises it, and is not content. It will be a Grim to rend our souls.” For a moment, her eyes winced to his face as if she needed reassurance. But then she jerked away, began snapping at her companions to make them hurry.

Soon the company was on its way, moving at a hard canter down the path which Memla invoked from the Banefire. Her urgency and Covenant's tight dread infected the Stonedownors, marked even Linden. The quest rode in silence, as if they could feel the Grim poised like a blade at the backs of their necks.

The jungle under the sun of pestilence aggravated Covenant's sense of impending disaster. The insects thronged around him like incarnations of disease. Every malformed bough and bush was a-crawl with malformed bugs. Some of the trees were so heavily veined with termites that the wood looked leprous. And the smell of rot had become severe. Under the aegis of the Sunbane, his guts ached, half expecting the vegetation to break open and begin suppurating.

Time dragged. Weakness crept through his muscles again. When the company finally rode into the relief of sunset, his neck and shoulders throbbed from the strain of looking backward for some sign of the Grim. Shivers ran through the marrow of his bones. As soon as Memla picked a camping place under the shelter of a megalithic stand of eucalyptus, he dropped to the ground, hoping to steady himself on the Earth's underlying granite. But his hands and feet were too numb to feel anything.

Around him, his companions dismounted. Almost at once, Linden went over to Hollian. The flesh of Linden's face was pale and taut, stretched tight over her skull. She accosted the eh-Brand purposefully, but then had to fumble for words. “The insects,” she murmured. “The smell. It's worse. Worse than any other sun. I can't shut it all out.” Her eyes watched the way her hands clung together, as if only that knot held her in one piece. “I can't-What's it going to be tomorrow?”

Sunder had moved to stand near Hollian. As Linden fell silent, he nodded grimly. “Never in all my life have I faced a sun of pestilence and encountered so little harm.” His tone was hard. “I had not known the Clave could journey so untouched by that which is fear and abhorrence to the people of the Land. And now ur-Lord Covenant teaches us that the Clave's immunity has been purchased by the increase rather than the decline of the Sunbane.” His voice darkened as if he were remembering all the people he had shed. “I do not misdoubt him. But I, too, desire tidings of the morrow's sun.”

Memla indicated with a shrug that such tidings could not alter her anxiety. But Covenant joined Linden and Sunder. He felt suddenly sickened by the idea that perhaps the soothtell had been a lie designed by Gibbon-Raver to mislead him. If two days of rain were followed by only two days of pestilence-Gripping himself, he waited for Hollian's response.

She acceded easily. Her light smile reminded him that she was not like Sunder. With her Iianar and her skill, she had always been able to touch the Sunbane for the benefit of others; she had never had to kill people to obtain blood. Therefore she did not loathe her own capabilities as Sunder did his.

She stepped a short distance away to give herself space, then took out her dirk and wand. Seating herself on the leaves which littered the ground, she summoned her concentration. Covenant, Linden, and Sunder watched intently as she placed the Iianar on her lap, gripped her dirk in her left hand and directed the point against her right palm. The words of invocation soughed past her lips. They clasped the company like a liturgy of worship for something fatal. Even the Haruchai left their tasks to stand ready. The thought that she was about to cut herself made Covenant scowl; but he had long ago left behind the days when he could have protested what she was doing.

Slowly, she drew a small cut on her palm. As blood welled from the incision, she closed her fingers on the Iianar. Dusk had deepened into night around the quest, concealing her from the watchers. Yet even Covenant's impercipient senses could feel her power thickening like motes of fire concatenating towards flame. For a bated moment, the air was still. Then she sharpened her chant, and the wand took light.

Red flames bloomed like Sunbane orchids. They spread up into the air and down her forearm to the ground. Crimson tendrils curled about her as if she were being overgrown. They seemed bright; but they cast no illumination; the night remained dark.

Intuitively, Covenant understood her fire. With chanting and blood and Iianar, she reached out toward the morrow's sun; and the flames took their colour from what that sun would be. Her fire was the precise hue of the sun's pestilential aura.

A third sun of pestilence. He sighed his relief softly. Here, at least, he had no reason to believe that the soothtell had been false.

But before the eh-Brand could relax her concentration, release her foretelling, the fire abruptly changed.

A streak of blackness as absolute as Vain's skin shot from the wood, scarred the flames with ebony. At first, it was only a lash across the crimson. But it grew, expanded among the flames until it dominated them, obscured them.

Quenched them.

Instantly, night covered the companions, isolating them from each other. Covenant could perceive nothing except a fault tang of smoke in the air, as if Hollian's wand had been in danger of being consumed.

He swore hoarsely under his breath and swung out his arms until he touched Brian on one side, Linden on the other. Then he heard feet spring through the leaves and heard Sunder cry, “Hollian!”

The next moment, Memla also cried out in horror. “Sending!” Fire raged from her rukh, cracked like a flail among the trees, making the night lurid. “It comes!” Covenant saw Ceer standing behind the Rider as if to protect her from attack. The other Haruchai formed a defensive ring around the company.

“Gibbon!” Memla howled. “Abomination!” Her fire savaged the air as ft she were trying to strike at Revelstone from a distance of nearly two score leagues. “By all the Seven Hells-!”

Covenant reacted instinctively. He surged into the range of Memla's fire and gripped her forearms to prevent her from striking at him. “Memla!” he yelled into her face. “Memla! How much time have we got?”

His grip or his demand reached her. Her gaze came into focus on him. With a convulsive shudder, she dropped her fire, let darkness close over the quest. When she spoke, her voice came out of the night like the whispering of condor wings.

"There is time. The Grim cannot instantly cross so many leagues. Perhaps as much as a day remains to us.

“But it is the na-Mhoram's Grim, and has been two days in the raising. Such a sending might break Revelstone itself.”

She took a breath which trembled. “Ur-Lord, we cannot evade this Grim. It will follow my rukh and rend us utterly.” Her voice winced in her throat. “I had believed that the wild magic would give us hope. But if it is beyond your control-”

At Covenant's back, a small flame jumped into life and caught wood. Sunder had lit a faggot. He held it up like a torch, lifting the company out of the dark.

Hollian was gasping through her teeth, fighting not to cry out. The violation of her foretelling had hurt her intimately.

“That's right,” Covenant gritted. “I can't control it.” His hands manacled Memla's wrists, striving to keep her from hysteria, “Hang on. Think. We've got to do something about this.” His eyes locked hers. “Can you leave your rukh behind?”

“Covenant!” she wailed in immediate anguish. “It is who I am! I am nothing to you without it.” He tightened his grasp. She flinched away from his gaze. Her voice became a dry moan. “Without my rukh, I cannot part the trees. And I cannot command the Coursers. It is the power to which they have been bred. Losing it, my hold upon them will be lost. They will scatter from us. Perhaps they will turn against us.” Her mien appeared to be crumbling in the unsteady torchlight. “This doom is upon my head,” she breathed. “In ignorance and folly, I lured you to Revelstone.”

“Damnation!” Covenant rasped, cursing half to himself. He felt trapped; and yet he did not want Memla to blame herself. He had asked for her help. He wrestled down his dismay. “All right,” he panted. “Call the Coursers. Let's try to outrun it.”

She gaped at him. “It is the Grim! It cannot be outrun.”

“Goddamn it, he's only one Raver!” His fear made him livid. “The farther he has to send it, the weaker it's going to be. Let's try!”

For one more moment, Memla could not recover her courage. But then the muscles of her face tightened, and a look of resolution or fatality came into her eyes. “Yes, ur-Lord,” she gritted. “It will be weakened somewhat. Let us make the attempt.”

As he released her, she began shouting for the Coursers.

They came out of the night like huge chunks of darkness. The Haruchai threw sacks of supplies and bundles of firewood onto the broad backs. Covenant wheeled to face his companions.

Sunder and Hollian stood behind Linden. She crouched among the leaves, with her hands clamped over her face. The Stonedownors made truncated gestures toward her but did not know how to reach her. Her voice came out as if it were being throttled.

“I can't-”

Covenant exploded. “Move!”

She flinched, recoiled to her feet. Sunder and Hollian jerked into motion as if they were breaking free of a trance. Cail abruptly swept Linden from the ground and boosted her lightly onto Clash. Scrambling forward, Covenant climbed up behind Memla. In a whirl, he saw Sunder and Hollian on their mounts, saw the Haruchai spring into position, saw Memla's rukh gutter, then burst alive like a scar across the dark.

At once, the Coursers launched themselves down the line of Memla's path.

The night on either side of her fire seemed to roil like thunderheads. Covenant could not see past her back; he feared that Din would careen at any moment into a failure of the path, crash against boulders, plunge into lurking ravines or gullies. But more than that, he feared his ring, feared the demand of power which the Grim would put upon him.

Memla permitted no disaster. At unexpected moments, her line veered past sudden obstacles; yet with her fire and her will she kept the company safe and swift. She was running for her life, for Covenant's life, for the hope of the Land; and she took her Coursers through the ruinous jungle like bolts from a crossbow.

They ran while the moon rose-ran as it arced overhead-ran and still ran after it had set. The Coursers were creatures of the Sunbane, and did not tire. Just after dawn, Memla slapped them to a halt. When Covenant dismounted, his legs trembled. Linden moved as if her entire body had been beaten with clubs. Even Sunder and Hollian seemed to have lost their hardiness. But Memla's visage was set in lines of extremity; and she held her rukh as if she strove to tune her soul to the pitch of iron.

She allowed the company only a brief rest for a meal. But even that time was too long. Without warning, Stell pointed toward the sun. The mute intensity of his gesture snatched every eye eastward.

The sun stood above the horizon, its sick red aura burning like a promise of infirmity. But the corona was no longer perfect. Its leading edge wore a stark black flaw.

The mark was wedge-shaped, like an attack of ur-viles, and aligned as if it were being hammered into the sun from Revelstone.

Linden's groan was more eloquent than any outcry.

Shouting a curse, Memla drove her companions back to the Coursers. In moments, the quest had remounted, and the beasts raced against black malice.

They could not win. Though Memla's path was strong and true-though the Coursers ran at the full stretch of their great legs-the blackness grew swiftly. By mid-morning, it had devoured half the sun's anadem.

Pressure mounted against Covenant's back. His thoughts took on the rhythm of Din's strides: I must not-Must not-Visions of killing came: ten years or four millennia ago, at the battle of Soaring Woodhelven, he had slain Cavewights. And later, he had driven a knife into the heart of the man who had murdered Lena. He could not think of power except in terms of killing.

He had no control over his ring.

Then the company burst out of thick jungle toward a savannah. There, nothing obstructed the terrain except the coarse grass, growing twice as tall as the Coursers, north, south, and east, and the isolated mounds of rock standing like prodigious cairns at great distances from each other. Covenant had an instant of overview before the company plunged down the last hillside into the savannah. The sky opened; and he could not understand how the heavens remained so untrammelled around such a sun. Then Memla's path sank into the depths of the grass.

The quest ran for another league before Hollian cried over the rumble of hooves, “It conies!”

Covenant flung a look behind him.

A thunderhead as stark as the sun's wound boiled out of the west. Its seething was poised like a fist; and it moved with such swiftness that the Coursers seemed not to be racing at all.

“Run!” he gasped at Memla's back.

As if in contradiction, she wrenched Din to a halt. The Courser skidded, almost fell. Covenant nearly lost his seat. The other beasts veered away, crashing frenetically through the grass. “Heaven and Earth!” Sunder barked. Controlling all the Coursers, Memla sent them wheeling and stamping around her, battering down the grass to clear a large circle.

As the vegetation east of him was crushed, Covenant saw why she had stopped.

Directly across her path marched a furious column of creatures.

For a moment, he thought that they were Cavewights-Cavewights running on all fours in a tight swath sixty feet wide, crowding shoulder to shoulder out of the south in a stream without beginning or end. They had the stocky frames, gangrel limbs, blunt heads of Cavewights. But if these were Cavewights they had been hideously altered by the Sunbane. Chitinous plating armoured their backs and appendages; their fingers and toes had become claws; their chins were split into horned jaws like mandibles. And they had no eyes, no features; their faces had been erased. Nothing marked their fore-skulls except long antennae which hunted ahead of them, searching out their way.

They rushed as if they were running headlong toward prey. The line of their march had already been torn down to bare dirt by the leaders. In their haste, they sounded like the swarming of gargantuan ants-formication punctuated by the sharp clack of jaws.

“Hellfire!” Covenant panted. The blackness around the sun was nearly complete; the Grim was scant leagues away, and closing rapidly. And he could see no way past this river of pestilential creatures. If they were of Cavewightish stock-He shuddered at the thought. The Cavewights had been mighty earth delvers, tremendously strong. And these creatures were almost as large as horses. If anything interrupted their single-minded march, they would tear even Memla's beasts limb from limb.

Linden began to whimper, then bit herself into silence. Sunder stared at the creatures with dread-glazed eyes. Hollian's hair lay on her shoulders like raven wings, emphasizing her pale features as if she were marked for death. Memla sagged in front of Covenant like a woman with a broken spine.

Turning to Brinn, Covenant asked urgently, “Will it pass?”

In answer, Brinn nodded toward Hergrom and Ceer. Ceer had risen to stand erect on Annoy's back. Hergrom promptly climbed onto Ceer's shoulders, balanced there to gain a view over the grass. A moment later, Brinn reported, “We are farsighted, but the end of this cannot be seen.”

Bloody hell! He was afraid of wild magic, power beyond control or choice. I must not-! But he knew that he would use it if he had to. He could not simply let his companions die.

The thunderhead approached like the blow of an axe. Blackness garroted the sun. The light began to dim.

A rush of protest went through him. Fear or no fear, this doom was intolerable. “All right.” Ignoring the distance to the ground, he dropped from Din's back. “We'll have to fight here.”

Brinn joined him. Sunder and Stell dismounted from Clang, Hollian and Harn from Clangor. Cail pulled Linden down from Clash and set her on her feet. Her hands twitched as if they were searching for courage; but she found none. Covenant tore his gaze away, so that her distress would not make him more dangerous. “Sunder,” he rapped out, “you've got your orcrest. Memla has her rukh. Is there some way you can work together? Can you hit that thing”- he grimaced at the Grim — “before it hits us?”

The cloud was almost overhead. It shed a preternatural twilight across the savannah, quenching the day.

“No.” Memla had not dismounted. She spoke as if her mouth were full of ashes. “There is not time. It is too great.”

Her dismay hurt Covenant like a demand for wild magic. He wanted to shout, I can't control it! Don't you understand? I might kill you all! But she went on speaking as if his power or incapacity had become irrelevant. “You must not die. That is certain.” Her quietness seemed suddenly terrible. “When the way is clear, cross instantly. This march will seal the gap swiftly.” She straightened her shoulders and lifted her face to the sky. “The Grim has found you because of me. Let it be upon my head.”

Before anyone could react, she turned Din and guided it toward the blind rushing creatures. As she moved, she brought up the fire of her rukh, holding it before her like a sabre.

Covenant and Sunder sprang after her. But Brinn and Stell interposed themselves. Cursing, the Graveller fought to break free; but Stell mastered him without effort. Furiously, Sunder shouted, “Release me! Do you not see that she means to die?”

Covenant ignored Sunder: he locked himself to Brinn's flat eyes. Softly, dangerously, he breathed, “Don't do this.”

Brinn shrugged. “I have sworn to preserve your life.”

“Banner took the same Vow.” Covenant did not struggle. But he glared straight at the Haruchai. People have died because of me. How much more do you think I can stand? “That's how Elena got killed. I might have been able to save her.”

The Grim began to boil almost directly above the quest. But the Cavewightlike creatures were unaware of it. They marched on like blind doom, shredding the dirt of the plains.

“Bannor maintained his Vow,” Brinn said, as if it cost him no effort to refute Covenant. "So the old tellers say, and their tale has descended from Bannor himself. It was First Mark Morin, sworn to the High Lord, who failed.“ He nodded toward Ceer. In response, Ceer sprinted after Memla and vaulted lightly onto Din's back. ”We also,“ Brinn concluded, ”will maintain the promise we have made, to the limit of our strength."

But Memla reacted in rage too thick for shouting. “By the Seven Hells!” she panted, “I will not have this. You have sworn nothing to me.” Brandishing her rukh, she faced Ceer. “If you do not dismount, I will burn you with my last breath, and all this company shall die for naught!”

Memla! Covenant tried to yell. But he could not. He had nothing to offer her; his fear of wild magic choked him. Helplessly, he watched as Ceer hesitated, glanced toward Brinn. The Haruchai consulted together in silence, weighing their commitments. Then Ceer sprang to the ground and stepped out of Din's way.

No! Covenant protested. She's going to get herself killed!

He had no time to think. Gloaming occluded the atmosphere. The ravening Grim poised itself above Memla, focused on her fire. The heavens around the cloud remained impossibly cerulean; but the cloud itself was pitch and midnight. It descended as it seethed, dropping toward its victims.

Under it, the air crackled as if it were being scorched.

The Coursers skittered. Sunder took out his orcrest, then seized Hollian's hand and pulled her to the far side of the circle, away from Memla. The Haruchai flowed into defensive positions among the companions and the milling beasts.

Amid the swirl of movement, Vain stood, black under black, as if he were inured to darkness.

Hergrom placed himself near Vain. But Memla was planning to die; Linden was foundering in ill; and Covenant felt outraged by the unanswerable must must not‹i› of his ring. He yelled at Hergrom, “Let him take care of himself!”

The next instant, he staggered to his knees. The air shattered with a heart-stopping concussion. The Grim broke into bits, became intense black flakes floating downward like a fall of snow.

With fearsome slowness, they fell-crystals of sun-darkness, tangible night, force which not even stone could withstand.

Howling defiance, Memla launched fire at the sky.

Din bunched under her and charged out into the march of the creatures. A series of tremendous heaves carried beast and Rider toward the centre of the stream.

The flakes of the Grim drifted in her direction, following the lodestone of her rukh. Its dense centre, the nexus of its might, passed beyond the quest.

The creatures immediately mobbed her mount. Din let out a piercing scream at the tearing of claws and mandibles. Only the plunging of its hooves, the slash of its spurs, the thickness of its coat, protected it.

Then the Grim fell skirling around her head. Her fire blazed: she lashed out, trying to keep herself and Din from being touched. Every flake her flame struck burst in a glare of darkness, and was gone. But for every flake she destroyed, she was assailed by a hundred more.

Covenant watched her in an agony of helplessness, knowing that if he turned to his ring now he could not strike for her without striking her. The Grim was thickest around her; but its edges covered the march as well as the quest. The creatures were swept into confusion as killing bits as big as fists fell among them.

Vermeil shot from Sunder's orcrest toward the darkened sun. Covenant yelled in encouragement. By waving the Sunstone back and forth, the Graveller picked flakes out of the air with his shaft, consuming them before they could reach him or Hollian.

Around the company, the Haruchai dodged like dervishes. They used flails of pampas grass to strike down the flakes. Each flake destroyed the whip which touched it; but the Haruchai snatched up more blades and went on fighting.

Abruptly, Covenant was thrust from his feet. A piece of blackness missed his face. Brinn pitched him past it, then jerked him up again. Heaving Covenant from side to side, Brinn danced among the falling Grim. Several flakes hit where they had been standing. Obsidian flares set fire to the grass.

The grass began to burn in scores of places.

Yet Vain stood motionless, with a look of concentration on his face. Flakes struck his skin, his tunic. Instead of detonating, they melted on him and ran hissing down his raiment, his legs, like water on hot metal.

Covenant gaped at the Demondim-spawn, then lost sight of him as Brinn went dodging through the smoke.

He caught a glimpse of Memla. She fought extravagantly for her life, hurled fire with all the outrage of her betrayal by the na-Mhoram. But the focus of the Grim formed a mad swarm around her. And the moiling creatures had already torn Din to its knees. In patches, its hide had been bared to the bone.

Without warning, a flake struck the Courser's head. Din collapsed, tumbling the Rider headlong among the creatures.

Memla! Covenant struggled to take hold of his power. But Brinn's thrusting and dodging reft nun of concentration. And already he was too late.

Yet Ceer leaped forward with the calm abandon of the Haruchai. Charging into the savagery, he fought toward Memla.

She regained her feet in a splash of fire. For an instant, she stood, gallant and tattered, hacking fury at the creatures. Ceer almost reached her.

Then Covenant lost her as Brinn tore him out from under a black flurry. Flames and Haruchai reeled about him; the flakes were everywhere. But he fought upright in time to see Memla fall with a scream of darkness in her chest.

As she died and dropped her rukh, the four remaining Coursers went berserk.

They erupted as if only her will had contained the madness of their fear. Yowling among the grassfires, two of them dashed out of the circle and fled across the savannah. Another ploughed into the breach the Grim had made in the march. As it passed, Ceer suddenly appeared at its side. Fighting free of the creatures, he grabbed at the Courser's hair and used the beast to pull him away.

The fourth beast attacked the company. Its vehemence caught the Haruchai unprepared. Its eyes burned scarlet as it plunged against Hergrom, struck him down with its chest.

Hergrom had been helping Cail to protect Linden.

Instantly, the beast reared at her.

Cail tried to shove her aside. She stumbled, fell the wrong way.

Covenant saw her sprawl under the Courser's hooves. One of them clipped her head as the beast stamped, trying to crush her.

Again, the Courser reared.

Cail stood over her. Covenant could not strike without hitting the Haruchai. He fought to run forward.

As the Courser hammered down, Cail caught its legs. For one impossible moment, he held the huge animal off her. Then it began to bend him.

Linden!

With a prodigious effort, Cail heaved the Courser to the side. Its hooves missed Linden as they landed.

Blood appeared. From shoulder to elbow, Cail's left arm had been ripped open by one of the beast's spurs.

It reared again.

Covenant's mind went instantly white with power. But before he could grasp it, use it, Brinn knocked him away from another cluster of flakes. The grass was giddy fire and death, whirling. He flipped to his feet and swung back toward Linden; but his heart had already frozen within him.

As his vision cleared, he saw Sunder hurl a blast of Sunbane-fire which struck the Courser's chest, knocking it to its knees. Lurching upright again, it pounded its pain away from the quest.

But Linden lay under the Grim, surrounded by growing fires, and did not move.

Twenty Two: Plain of Fire

FIRES leaped in front of him, obscuring her from his sight. The Grim-fall darkened the air. The thrashing and clatter of the creatures filled his ears. He could not see if Linden were still alive. Brinn kept heaving him from side to side, kept lashing handfuls of grass around his head.

Sunder's fire scored the atmosphere like straight red lightning. Now the corrosive flakes began to concentrate around him.

Covenant broke free of Brinn, went surging toward Linden.

Hergrom had lifted her from the ground. The Haruchai carried her in an elaborate dance of evasion. She hung limp in his arms. Blood seeping from the back of her head matted her hair.

An argent shout gathered in Covenant's chest.

But as he raised his head to howl power, he saw the blackness around the sun fraying. Pestilential red glistered through the ebony. The last Grim-flakes were drifting toward Sunder's head. The Graveller was able to consume them all.

At once, Covenant locked his throat, left the wild magic unspoken. In a rush, he reached Hergrom and Linden.

Cail stood nearby. He had torn a strip from his tunic; with Ham's help, he bound the cloth as a tourniquet about his arm. His ripped flesh bled heavily.

The other Haruchai were marked with smoke and fire, but had not been injured. And Sunder and Hollian were unharmed, though his exertions left the Graveller tottering. Hollian supported him.

Vain stood a short distance away as if nothing had happened. Flames licked about his feet like crushed serpents.

Covenant ignored them all. Linden's visage was lorn alabaster. Blood stained her wheaten tresses. Her lips wore an unconscious grimace of pain. He tried to take her from Hergrom's arms; but Hergrom would not release her.

“Ur-Lord.” Brinn's alien voice seemed incapable of urgency. “We must go. Already the gap closes.”

Covenant pulled uselessly at Hergrom's grasp. It was intolerable that she might die! She was not meant to end like this. Or why had she been Chosen? He called out to her, but did not know how to reach her.

“Covenant!” Sunder's ragged breathing made his tone hoarse. “It is as Brinn says. The na-Mhoram-in spent her life to provide this passage. We must go.”

Memla. That name pierced Covenant. She had given her life. Like Lena. And so many others. With a shudder, he turned from Hergrom. His hands groped for support. “Yes.” He could hardly hear himself through the flames. “Let's go.”

At once, the Haruchai sprang into motion. Harn and Stell led the way; Hergrom and Brinn followed with Covenant; Cail guarded Sunder and Hollian. They paid no attention to Vain. In a body, they dodged the grassfires toward the breach in the march.

The creatures milled insanely around the scorched and pitted ground where Memla had fallen. Their leaders had already marched out of sight, incognizant of what had happened behind them. But more warped beings poured constantly from the south. They would have overrun the company immediately; but their own dead delayed them. The arriving creatures fell on the many slain and injured, tearing flesh apart with claws and mandibles, feeding ravenously. And the fires added fear to their hunger.

Into the confusion, the Haruchai guided Covenant and the Stonedownors.

The quest appeared small and fragile beside those large, blind creatures, vulnerable against those ferocious jaws, those plated limbs. But Brinn's people threaded the roil with uncanny stealth. And whenever a creature blundered toward them, Stell and Ham struck cunningly, breaking the antennae so that the creature could not locate its prey. Thus maimed, the beasts were swept into mortal combat with other creatures. Covenant, Sunder, and Hollian were impelled past gaping jaws, under rearing bellies, across moments of clear ground, as if their lives were preserved by the charm of Haruchai competence.

A few shreds of red cloth marked the place of Memla's death, unambergrised by any grave or chance for mourning.

Running as well as they could, the companions broke into the thick grass beyond the march. Creatures veered to follow. With all their strength, Stell and Harn attacked the grass, forcing a way through it. Only Vain did not make haste. He had no need for haste: every creature which touched him fell dead, and was devoured by the oncoming surge.

A short distance into the grass, Ceer joined the company. He did not speak; but the object he held explained what he had done.

Memla's rukh.

The sight of it halted Covenant. Possibilities reeled through his head. He grappled to take hold of them.

But he had no time. A sharp crepitation cut the grass like a scythe; thousands of creatures were chewing their way in pursuit.

Brinn thrust Covenant forward. The company ran.

Ceer, Stell, Brinn, and Harn dropped back to defend the rear. Now Cail led. In spite of his wounded arm and the abrasion of the raw, stiff grass, he forced a path with his body. Hergrom followed, carrying Linden; and Covenant crowded on Hergrom's heels, with Hollian and Sunder behind him.

The creatures gave chase as if they were prepared to reap the savannah in order to feast on human flesh. The noise of their charge hunted the company like fire.

Cail attacked the thick blades with all the ancient valour of the Haruchai; but he could not open a path swiftly enough to outdistance the pursuit. Covenant soon began to waver in exhaustion. He was still convalescing from the soothtell. Sunder and Hollian were in little better condition. Linden lay like defeat in Hergrom's arms. And Cail left smears of blood across the grass.

In the back of Covenant's desperation, a demand panted. Use your ring! But he could not, could not. He was so weak. He began to lose ground. Cail and Hergrom seemed to fade through the whipping backlash of the grass. If he let the venom rise in him, he did not know what he would kill. He heard himself yelling as if his exertions were a knife in his chest; but he could not silence the pain.

Suddenly, Brinn was at his side. Speaking only loud enough to be heard, the Haruchai reported, “Cail has found a place which may be defended.”

Covenant staggered, fell thrashing among serrated grass-spears. A miasma of rot clogged his breathing. But Brinn heaved him back to his feet. Vertigo whirled through him. Clinging to Brinn's shoulder as if it were the only solid thing left in the world, he let the Haruchai half carry him forward.

Cail's path led to a pile of boulders rising incongruously out of the savannah, like a cairn left by Giants. It stood half again as high the surrounding grass. Hergrom had already climbed to the crown, set Linden down in relative safety, and returned to help Sunder and Hollian ascend. Ignoring his pain, Cail joined Hergrom. Stell and Harn followed. They caught Covenant when Brinn and Ceer boosted him upward.

He scrambled to Linden's side, fought down his weakness, tried to examine her. Lifting her head, parting her hair as gently as he could with his numb fingers, he found that the wound in her scalp did not appear serious. The bleeding had almost ceased. Yet she remained unconscious. All her muscles were limp. Her face looked like the aftermath of a battle. His truncated senses could not measure her condition. He was useless to her.

Sunder and Hollian climbed up to him. Kneeling beside Linden, Sunder scrutinized her. Fatigue and trepidation dragged at his features. “Ah, Linden Avery,” he breathed. “This is a sore mischance.”

Covenant stifled a groan and sought to contradict the dismay in Sunder's tone. “It doesn't look that serious.”

The Graveller avoided Covenant's stare. “The injury itself-Perhaps even Cail's hurt does not threaten his life. But this is a sun of pestilence.” He faltered into silence,

“Ur-Lord,” Hollian said tightly, “any wound is fatal under a sun of pestilence. There is no healing for the Sunbane sickness.”

“None?” The word was torn from Covenant.

“None,” Sunder rasped through his teeth. And Hollian said with pain in her gaze, “None that is known to the people of the Land. If the Clave has knowledge of a cure-”

She did not need to complete her thought. Covenant understood her; Memla was dead. Because she was honest, she had turned against the na-Mhoram; because she was brave she had drawn the Grim onto herself; and because Covenant had not used his wild magic, she was dead. His fear had cost her her life.

He had cost the company even the bare possibility that she might have known how to treat Linden. And Cail.

Any wound is fatal.

And that was not all. The Coursers were gone. The quest had no supplies.

It was his fault, because he had been afraid. With power, he tilled. Without power, he caused people to die.

Memla had given her life for him.

Eyes burning, he rose dangerously to his feet. The height of his perch threatened him; but he ignored it as if he were impervious to vertigo, or lost.

“Brinn!”

The Haruchai had ranged themselves defensively around the rocks at the level of the grass tops. Over his shoulder, Brinn said, “Ur-Lord?”

“Why did you let Memla die?”

Brinn replied with a shrug. “The choice was hers.” His confidence in his own rectitude seemed immaculate. “Ceer made offer of his life. She refused.”

Covenant nodded. Memla had refused. Because he had told her he could not control his ring.

He was not satisfied with Brinn's answer. The Bloodguard had once made a similar decision about Kevin-and had never forgiven themselves for the outcome. But such questions did not matter now. Memla was dead. Linden and Cail were going to die. Blinking at the heat in his eyes, he looked around him.

The quest was poised on the mound of boulders-all except Vain, who remained below, as if he were comfortable among the grass and the stench. The jungle lay out of sight to the west. In all directions, the savannah stretched to the horizons, an inland sea of grey-green, waving lightly in the breeze.

But it wore a scar of bare dirt running imponderably northward. And from this scar, a similar swath had veered toward the company's knoll. Already, the fires of the Grim had faded to smoke and smouldering. Freed from that peril, the creatures rushed in a straight line toward the boulders. The grass boiled as it was thrust aside, tramped down, eaten. Soon the knoll stood alone among a seethe of beasts.

Covenant could barely discern Vain. The Demondim-spawn held his ground with perfect nonchalance, and every creature which touched him died.

The Haruchai were ready when the attack began. As the creatures scrambled up the rocks, Brinn and his people used the advantage of elevation to break each assailant's antennae, then strove to dislodge the creature so that it fell back into the boil and was consumed.

They were surprisingly successful. Their strength, accuracy, and balance made them effective; and the fallen beasts slowed the rest of the attack.

But the knoll was too large; five Haruchai could not defend it completely. Gradually, they were driven backward.

Covenant did not hesitate. Cold fury filled his bones like power. Snarling at himself, he pulled the bundle from under his belt and unwrapped the krill of Loric Vilesilencer.

The brightness of its gem stopped him momentarily; he had forgotten the intensity of that white, pure light, the keenness of the edges, the heat of the metal. A leper's fear made him reluctant to touch the krill without the protection of cloth.

But then the company's need came over him like a geas. His fingers were already numb, irrelevant. No burn could alter the doom which defined him. He dropped the cloth., took the krill in his half-hand, and went to join the Haruchai.

Beings like misborn Cavewights came jerking upward on their long limbs. Then: claws scored the stone; their jaws gaped and clacked. One gouge could disembowel him; one bite could sever an arm. Their feelers reached toward him.

Moving as if he were accursed, he began to slash at them.

The krill sliced their plating like bare flesh, cut through antennae, even mandibles, as if the blade were a broadsword with the weight and puissance of a Giant behind it. The krill was a tool of Law, and the creatures were the Lawless spawn of the Sunbane. A dull ache of fire spread up through Covenant's palm to his wrist, his arm; but he hacked and flailed urgently, and his every stroke sent a beast to the ungentle death of the mass below it.

Soon Sunder joined the defence. His poniard was not a good weapon for such work; but he was sturdy, and his blade could cripple feelers. He was unable to dislodge the beasts as the Haruchai did. But often that was unnecessary. With damaged antennae, the creatures became disoriented, turned aside, grappled with each other, toppled to the ground. And Stell or Ceer warded him.

The attack did not falter; hundreds of creatures replaced the scores which fell. But the company held. In time, all the ground around the knoll was denuded of grass; and a storm of mute rage covered the bare dirt, seeking to strike upward. But only a certain number of beasts could assail the boulders at any one moment. Against these limited numbers, the company held. Their ordeal dragged out like slow torture. Covenant's arms became leaden; he had to grip the krill in both hands. Sunder kept up a mutter of curses, lashing himself to continue the struggle long after he had exhausted his strength. But Hollian gave him periods of rest by taking his place, using his poniard because her dirk was too small for the task. And Vain's power helped, though he seemed unaware of what he did. The company held.

The afternoon wore on. Covenant became little more than a blank reflex. He grew numb to the passage of time, the progress of the assault. His joints were cramped with fire. Time and again, Brinn saved him from attacks he was too slow to meet.

He hardly noticed when the sun started to set, and the frenzy of the creatures began to abate. At the onset of twilight, the beasts seemed to lose purpose or direction. By ones and twos, then by scores, they scuttled away, wandering hurriedly into the grass. As dusk thickened over the savannah, the goad of the Sunbane faded. Soon all the creatures were fleeing.

Covenant stopped. His heart trembled like prostration in his chest. He was gasping for breath. He dropped the krill among the rocks. The knoll tilted under him. On his hands and knees, he tried to crawl up to Linden. But he could not reach her. His dizziness became suddenly violent. It whirled him out into the blind night.

Sometime after the moon had passed its apex, he was awakened by Linden's knotted retching as she went into convulsions.

He lurched upright and groped through a blur of fatigue, hunger, thirst, to try to see what was happening.

The crown of the boulders was lit by the krill; it had been wedged among the stones so that it shed illumination over the company. Sunder and Hollian crouched beside Linden, watching her anxiously. Ceer and Hergrom restrained her so that she would not hurt herself, as long, mad clenchings shook her muscles.

On the lower boulders, the other Haruchai clustered as if they were fighting each other. With a quick glance, Covenant saw Brinn, Stell, and Harn struggling to quell Cail. Like Linden, the injured Haruchai lay in the grip of frenetic seizures.

Seeing Covenant, Sunder rasped grimly, “The sun of pestilence has infected her wound. From this sickness none recover.”

Oh, God.

A rush of panic started up in him, then shattered as he realized that Linden was gagging, choking on her tongue.

He grabbed for her face and tried to pry her jaws open. But he could not break the locking of her teeth. Her whole body sprang rigid.

“She's swallowed her tongue! Get her mouth open!”

Instantly, Ceer clinched both her wrists in his left hand. With his right, he tried to wedge open her jaws. For one heartbeat, even his strength was not enough. Then he succeeded in forcing her teeth apart. She quivered under a lash of pain. Holding her mouth open with the width of his hand, he reached deftly down her throat, cleared her tongue.

She drew breath as if she wanted to scream; but convulsions blocked the wail in her chest.

With a feral spasm, Cail hurled Brinn from him. Twisting in the air, Brinn landed lightly on the ground, came bounding upward again as Stell and Harn grappled with their kinsman.

Linden's face was ghastly in the sunlight. Her breathing wept in and out of her excruciated lungs.

Cail sounded as if he were asphyxiating. An obscure part of Covenant thought, He's immune to the Sunbane. There must have been poison in the spur.

He concentrated on Linden as if he could keep her alive by sheer force of will. His hand shook as he stroked her forehead, wiped the sweat away; but he could feel nothing.

“Ur-Lord,” Hollian said in a stretched whisper, “I must speak of this. It must be uttered.” He could not read her countenance; her face was averted from the krill Out of the shadow, she breathed, “I have consulted the Iianar. The morrow will bring a desert sun.”

Covenant clung to Linden's torment, willing it to ease. “I don't give a damn.”

“There is more.” Hollian's tone sharpened. She was an eh-Brand, accustomed to respect. “There will be fire, as if the sun were a sun of flame. This will become a place of ill. We must flee.”

“Now?”

“At once. We must return to the west-to the soil where trees grow. The earth of this grassland will be death to us.”

“She's in no condition!” His sudden fury shocked the night, struck the company into a silence punctuated only by the hoarse breathing of the injured. With a wrench of his shoulders, he dismissed Hollian's warning. “I'm not going to move her.”

She started to protest. Sunder interrupted her gruffly. “He is the ur-Lord.”

“He is wrong. The truth must be met. These deaths cannot be prevented. To remain here will be death for us all.”

“He is the ur-Lord.” Sunder's roughness grew gentle. “Every task to which he sets his hand is impossible-yet it is accomplished. Have courage, eh-Brand.”

Linden broke into another series of spasms. Watching the way her illness brutalized her, Covenant feared that every breath would be her last. But then, abruptly, her convulsions ended; she fell limp as if the puppet strings of her plight had been cut. Slowly, her respiration deepened as she sank into the sleep of exhaustion.

Cail's affliction was more advanced. The fits which wracked him went on until moonset. Brinn's people had to fight incessantly to prevent him from battering himself to death on the rocks.

“Dawn is near,” Sunder murmured softly, as if he feared to disturb the stillness, feared that the sound of his voice might trigger Linden or Cail into frenzy again.

“We are too late.” Hollian could not suppress her bitterness. “We must remain here. We cannot gain safety in time.”

Covenant ignored both of them. He sat with Linden in his embrace and sought to believe that she would live.

No one moved. They sat in the krill-light while the east paled toward sunrise. A dusty glow began to silhouette the earth. All the stars were washed away. The sky modulated as brown gathered around the imminence of the dawn. The atmosphere grew palpably drier, foretelling heat.

When the sun rose, it wore a cloak of desiccation. Its touch reminded Covenant that he had not had food or fluid since the previous morning. A giddy dispassion began to revolve in him, distancing him from his fate. Linden's flagrant slumber felt like an accomplished fact in his arms.

As the Sunbane collared the savannah, the pampas grass began to melt. Its fiber turned to a dead grey sludge, and slumped to the ground like spilth. This, Covenant mused in a mood of canted detachment, was what had happened to Morinmoss. To Grimmerdhore and Garroting Deep. A desert sun had risen over them, and tens of thousands of years of sentient forest had simply dissolved into muck. And the glory of the world becomes less than it was. For a moment, he recovered enough passion to ache out, Damn you, Foul! It would be better if you just killed me.

In a voice like Covenant's inanition, but infinitely steadier, Brinn addressed Hollian. “Eh-Brand, you spoke of fire.”

“The Iianar spoke of fire.” Both affronted dignity and nagging self-doubt marked her words. “Never have I seen such a flame in my foretelling. Do not question me. I cannot answer.”

Covenant thought dimly that there was no reason for fire. The quest was without water under a desert sun. Nothing else was necessary.

The truth of Hollian's augury became clear when the sun rose high enough, and the grass sank low enough, for light to contact the bare ground around the knoll. And with the light came a faint shimmer which seemed to transmogrify the texture of the soil. The dirt began to glow.

Covenant believed that he was hallucinating.

Without warning, Vain ascended the boulders. Everyone stared at him; but his black eyes remained unfocused, private, as if he were unaware of his own intentions.

Brinn and Hergrom placed themselves to guard Covenant and Linden. But Vain stopped without acknowledging the Haruchai and stood gazing like a void into the blank air.

Slowly, the soil took on a reddish tinge enriched with yellow. The colour deepened, hardened.

Heat radiated from the ground.

Around the edges of the clearing, the sludge started to smoulder. Viscid smoke went up in wisps, then in billows which thickened steadily, clogging the atmosphere.

In moments, the muck was afire.

As it burned, smoke began to mount in other places across the savannah. Soon there were blazes everywhere.

And the bare dirt continued to darken.

The company watched tensely; even the Haruchai seemed to be holding their breath. Only Linden and Cail were oblivious. Vain was not. He studied Linden between the shoulders of Brinn and Hergrom, and his visage sharpened, as if vague purposes were being whetted toward clarity within him.

Numbly, Covenant studied the ground. That rich, half-orange light and heat brought up recollections. Gradually, the face of Lena's father, Trell, became vivid to him; he did not know why. He could see Trell standing like granite in Lena's home. The big Stonedownor's face was ruddy with light. Reflections gleamed in his beard-the precise colour of these emanations.

Then Covenant remembered.

Graveling. Fire-stones.

Under the touch of the desert sun, this entire savannah was being transformed into a sea of graveling.

Fire consumed the sludge; and under it lay clear graveling which sent one long, silent shout of heat into the heavens.

Covenant and his companions might as well have been perched above a flow of lava.

He sat and stared as if his eyeballs had been scorched blind. He could feel death lying like a familiar in his arms.

Memla had sacrificed herself. Linden and Cail were going to die. Everyone was going to die.

Vain gave no hint of his intent. The suddenness of his movement took even the wary Haruchai by surprise. With a frightening swiftness, he thrust Brinn and Hergrom aside and stepped between them toward Covenant and Linden.

Hergrom caught himself on an outcropping of rock. Brinn was saved from a fall into the graveling only by the celerity with which Ceer grabbed for him.

Effortlessly, Vain took Linden from Covenant's arms.

Stell surged forward, pounded Vain between the eyes. The Demondim-spawn did not react; he went about his purpose as if he had not been touched. Stell was knocked back against Harn.

Cradling Linden gently, Vain stepped to the eastern edge of the mound and leaped down into the fire-stones.

“Vain!”

Covenant was on his feet. His hearing roared as if the heat had become a gale. Venom pulsed in his veins. He wanted wild magic, wanted to strike-!

But if he hit Vain, hurt him, the Demondim-spawn might drop Linden into the graveling.

Linden!

Vain paid no heed to the danger behind him. Firmly, surely, he strode away.

At that instant, Hergrom sprang pantherish from the boulders. At the farthest stretch of his leap, he impacted against Vain's shoulders.

The Demondim-spawn did not even stumble. He walked on across the graveling with Linden held before him and Hergrom clinging to his back as if he were unconscious of them both.

Covenant's shouting died in his chest. He was hardly aware that Brinn and Sunder were holding his arms as if to prevent him from pursuing Vain.

“He does not feel the fire,” Brinn remarked distantly. “Perhaps he will save her. Perhaps he intends to save her.”

To save-? Covenant sagged. Was it possible? The muscles of his face hurt, but he could not unclench his grimace. To save her so that she could serve Lord Foul? “Then why”- his voice knotted — “didn't he help her before? During the Grim?”

Brinn shrugged. “Perhaps he saw then that his aid was not needed. He acts now to save her because we are helpless.”

Vain? Covenant panted. No. He could not suppress the tremors in him. “We're not helpless.” It was unbearable. Not even a leper could bear it. We are not helpless.

He cast one abrupt glance toward Vain. The Demondim-spawn was running, fading into the shimmer of the graveling.

Covenant wrenched free of Brinn and Sunder. He confronted his companions. The effort to control his trembling made him savage. “Ceer. Give me the rukh”

Sunder scowled. Hollian's eyes widened as if she felt an intuitive hope or fear. But the Haruchai showed no surprise. Ceer took Memla's rukh from his tunic and handed it to Covenant.

With a jerk, Covenant thrust the iron toward Sunder. “All right. You're the Graveller. Use it.”

Sunder's lips formed words without sound: Use it?

“Call the Coursers back. They're bred to the Sunbane. They can carry us out of here.”

The Graveller breathed a strangled protest. “Covenant!”

Covenant jabbed the rukh against Sunder's chest. “Do it. I can't. I don't know the Sunbane the way you do. I can't touch it. I'm a leper.”

“And I am not a Rider!”

“I don't care.” Covenant clinched ire around his dread. “We're all going to die. Maybe I don't count. But you do. Hollian does. You know the truth about the Clave.” Again, he punched Sunder with the rukh. “Use it.”

The heat spread sweat across Sunder's face, made his features look like they were about to melt like the grass. Desperately, he turned an imploring gaze toward Hollian.

She touched his scarred forearm. The stature of her calling was upon her, “Sunder,” she said quietly. “Graveller. Perhaps it may be done. Surely the Sunstone empowers you to the attempt. And I will aid you as I can. Through the Iianar, I am able to perceive the state of the Sunbane. It may be that I can guide you to mastery.”

For a moment, they held each other's eyes, measuring what they saw. Then Sunder swung back to Covenant. The Graveller's expression was rent by fear of failure, by instinctive loathing for anything which belonged to the Clave. But he accepted the rukh.

Grimly, he climbed to sit atop the highest boulder, near the white radiance of the krill.

Hollian stood on a lower rock so that her head was level with his. She watched gravely as he set his orcrest in his lap, then fumbled to uncap the hollow handle of the rukh.

Covenant's legs quavered as if they could no longer bear the weight of who he was. But he braced himself on the rocks, remained erect like a witness and a demand.

Sunder poured the last fluid from the rukh into his hand. Hollian placed her palm in his, let it rest there for a moment, sharing the blood like a gesture of comradeship. Then she wrapped her stained fingers around the Iianar, and began to chant softly to herself. Sunder rubbed his hands together, dabbed red onto his forehead and cheeks, then picked up the Sunstone.

The rigid accents of his invocation formed a counterpoint to her lilting murmur. Together, they wove the silence into a skein of Sunbane-power: bloodshed and fire.

Soon, his familiar vermeil shaft shot like a quarrel toward the sun. A crepitation like the discharge of slow lightning made the air squirm.

He lifted the rukh and held it so that the Sunstone's beam ran along the iron. His knuckles whitened, cording the backs of his hands.

Delicate flames opened like buds along the Iianar. Hollian closed her eyes. Her fire turned slowly to the colour of the sun's brown aura, began to put out tendrils. One of them reached Sunder's hands. It wound around his grasp, then started to climb the rukh and the Sunstone shaft.

He blinked fiercely at the sweat in his eyes, glared as if the rukh were an adder he could neither hold nor release.

The poignance in Covenant's chest told him that he had forgotten to breathe. When he forced himself to inhale, he seemed to suck in vertigo from the air. Only his braced arms kept him from losing his balance.

None of the Haruchai were watching Sunder and Hollian. Cail had gone into convulsions. The others fought to keep him still.

Memories of Linden wrung Covenant's guts. He shut his eyes against the nausea.

He looked up again when the chanting ended. Sunder's shaft and Hollian's flame vanished. The Stonedownors clung to each other. The Graveller's shoulders shook.

Covenant knelt without knowing how he had lost his feet.

When Sunder spoke, his voice was muffled against Hollian's neck. “After all, it is not greatly difficult to be a Rider. I am attuned to the rukh. The Coursers are distant. But they have heard. They will come.”

Eventually, Cail's seizure receded. For a while, he regained consciousness; but he spoke in the alien tongue of the Haruchai, and Covenant did not understand what he said.

The first of the great beasts returned shortly before noon. By then, thirst and hunger had reduced Covenant to stupefaction; he could not focus his eyes to see which of the Coursers it was, or whether the animal still bore any supplies. But Brinn reported, “It is Clangor, the Courser which assailed Linden Avery. It limps. Its chest is burned. But it suffers no harm from the graveling.” A moment later, he added, “Its burdens are intact.”

Intact, Covenant thought dizzily. He peered through the haze as Ceer and Stell leaped down to the Courser, then returned carrying sacks of water and food. Oh dear God.

By the time he and the Stonedownors had satisfied the first desperation of their thirst and had begun to eat a meal, Annoy came galloping from the south. Like Clangor, it was unscathed by the graveling; but it skittered uncomfortably around the knoll, champing to escape the fire-stones.

Clash and Clang also returned. Sunder frowned at them as if he did not like the pride he felt in what he had achieved; but Hollian's smile shone.

At once, the Haruchai began to prepare for departure.

Using the piece of cloth he had discarded, Covenant rewrapped the krill and tucked it under his belt. Then he descended the boulders to the level of the Coursers' backs.

At close range, the heat of the graveling felt severe enough to char his flesh. It triggered involuntary memories of Hotash Slay and Saltheart Foamfollower. The Giant had spent himself in lava and agony to help Covenant.

Distrusting the Coursers and himself, Covenant could not leap the small distance to a mount. No more, he yearned. Don't let any more friends die for me. He had to cling where he was, squinting against the radiance, until the Haruchai could help him.

In a moment, Ceer and Brinn joined him, carrying Cail. Sunder raised the rukh, uncertain of his mastery; but the Coursers obeyed, crowding close to the knoll. Leaving Cail, Ceer stepped to Annoy's back. Harn tossed the sacks to him. He placed them across Annoy's huge withers, then accepted Cail from Brinn.

Cail's arm was livid and suppurating badly. It made Covenant groan. Cail needed Linden. She was a doctor.

She was as sick as the Haruchai.

Practicing his control, Sunder sent Annoy out of the way of the other Coursers. Then Ham and Hollian mounted Clangor. The Graveller joined Stell on Clang. Before Covenant could suppress his dread, Brinn lifted him onto Clash.

He dropped to the broad back, knotted his fists in Clash's hair. Heat blasted at him like slow roasting and suffocation. But he fought to raise his voice. “Find Vain. Fast.”

With a gesture, Sunder launched the beasts eastward. They galloped away through air burnished orange by graveling.

Clang bore Sunder and the rukh at a staggering pace; but the other mounts matched it. Even Clangor, oozing pain from its wound, did not fall behind; it ran like a storm-wind with frenzy in its red eyes. It had been formed by the power of the Banefire to obey any rukh. It could not refuse Sunder's authority.

Covenant could not gauge their speed; he could hardly keep his eyes open against the sharp heat, hardly breathe. He only knew that he was travelling swiftly. But he did not know how fast Vain could run. The Demondim-spawn's lead was as long as the morning.

Wind scorched his face. His clothes felt hot on his skin, as if the fabric had begun to smoulder. He wore warm sweat down the length of his body. His eyes bled tears against the shine and heat of the graveling. But the Coursers ran as if they were being borne by the passion of the fire-stones. Hollian clung to Harn's back. Sunder hunched over Clang's neck. The Haruchai rode with magisterial detachment. And the Coursers ran.

The graveling unfurled as if it would never end. Fire deepened the sky, collared the heavens with molten grandeur. Through the haze, the sun's coronal looked like an outer ring of incandescence. The entire savannah was a bed of coals; the Coursers were traversing an accentuated hell. But Sunder had mastered the rukh. While he lived, the beasts could not falter.

They did not. They ran as if they had been born in flames. Smoothly, indefatigably, they swept the leagues behind them like dead leaves into a furnace.

Covenant's breathing sobbed, not because he lacked air, but rather because his lungs were being seared. He began to have visions of Glimmermere, the cool tarn tinged with Earthpower. His bones throbbed to inhale water. And the Coursers ran.

When they broke out of the graveling onto hard dirt, the suddenness of the change made the desert air feel like bliss. It snatched his head up. Relief slammed into his chest like a polar wind. In an instant, the Coursers were clattering across dead, sun-baked soil, raising pennons of dust. The haze retreated; abruptly, the terrain had features, texture, meaning.

As his sight cleared, he saw Vain ahead of him.

The Demondim-spawn stood, black and fatal, on the bank of a gully which twisted emptily across the company's way. The dull iron bands of the Staff of Law emphasized his midnight form. He watched the Coursers thunder toward him as if he had been waiting for them.

He was alone,

Alone?

Covenant tumbled from Clash's back as the beast pounded to a halt. He landed hard, sprawled across the dirt. Rolling his feet under him, he hurled himself at Vain.

“What have you done with her?”

Vain did not move: Covenant crashed into the Demondim-spawn, recoiled as if he had hit a wall of obsidian.

The next moment, Hergrom appeared out of the gully. He seemed uninjured, though his raiment had been singed by the gravelling. Without expression, as if he did not deign to judge Covenant's precipitation, he said, “She is here. In the shade.”

Covenant surged past him, jumped down into the gully.

The dry watercourse was not deep. He landed in sand and whirled, searching for Linden.

She lay on her back under the shadow of the gully wall. Her skin seemed faintly red in the dimmer light; she had been so close to the graveling. He could see her as clearly as if she were engraved on his mind: her raw colour, the streaks of sweat in her wheaten hair, the frown scar between her brows like an expostulation against the life she had lived.

She was in convulsions. Her heels drummed the sand; her fingers attacked the ground on either side; spasms racked her body, arched her back. A skull-grin clinched her face. Small gasps whimpered through her teeth like shreds of pain.

Covenant dived to her side, gripped her shoulders to restrain her arms. He could not make a sound, could not thrust words past his panic.

Sunder and Hollian joined him, followed by Harn and Hergrom. Brinn, Ceer, and Stell came a moment later, bearing Cail. He, too, was in the throes of another seizure.

Sunder rested a hand on Covenant's shoulder. “It is the Sunbane sickness,” he said softly. “I am sorry. She cannot endure.”

Her whimpering turned to a rasp in her throat like a death-rattle. She seemed to be groaning, “Covenant.”

Linden! he moaned. I can't help you!

Abruptly, her eyes snapped open, staring wildly. They gaped over the rictus which bared her teeth.

“Cove-” Her throat worked as the muscles knotted, released. Her jaws were locked together like the grip of a vice. Her eyes glared white delirium at him. “Help-”

Her efforts to speak burned his heart. “I don't-” He was choking. “Don't know how.”

Her lips stretched as if she wanted to sink her teeth into the skin of his cheek. Her neck cords stood out like bone. She had to force the word past her seizure by sheer savagery.

“Voure.”

“What?” He clung to her. “Voure?”

“Give-” Her extremity cut him like a sword. “Voure”

The sap that warded off insects? His orbs were as dry as fever. “You're delirious.”

“No” The intensity of her groan pierced the air. “Mind-” Her wild, white stare demanded, beseeched. With every scrap of her determination, she fought her throat. “Clear.” The strain aggravated her convulsions. Her body kicked against his weight as if she were being buried alive. “I-” For an instant, she dissolved into whimpers. But she rallied, squeezed out, “Feel.”

Feel? he panted. Feel what?

“Voure.”

For one more horrific moment, he hung on the verge of understanding her. Then he had it.

Feel!

“Brinn!” he barked over his shoulder. “Get the voure!”

Feel! Linden could feel. She had the Land-born health sense; she could perceive the nature of her illness, understand it precisely. And the voure as well. She knew what she needed.

The angle of her stare warned him. With a jolt, he realized that no one had moved, that Brinn was not obeying him.

“Covenant,” Sunder murmured painfully. “Ur-Lord. She-I beg you to hear me. She has the Sunbane sickness. She knows not what she says. She-”

“Brinn.” Covenant spoke softly, but his lucid passion sliced through Sunder's dissuasion. “Her mind is clear. She knows exactly what she's saying. Get the voure.”

Still the Haruchai did not comply. “Ur-Lord,” he said, “the Graveller has knowledge of this sickness.”

Covenant had to release Linden's arms, clench his fists against his forehead to keep from screaming. “The only reason”- his voice juddered like a cable in a high wind — “Kevin Landwaster was able to perform the Ritual of Desecration, destroy all the rife of the Land for hundreds of years, was because the Bloodguard stood by and let him do it. He ordered them not to do anything, and he had knowledge, so they obeyed. For the rest of their lives, their Vow was corrupt, and they didn't know it. They didn't even know they were tainted until Lord Foul rubbed their noses in it. Until he proved he could make them serve him.” Foul had maimed three of them to make them resemble Covenant. “Are you going to just stand there again and let more people die?” Abruptly, his control shattered. He hammered the sand with his fists. “Get the VOURE!”

Brinn glanced at Sunder, at Cail. For a moment, he seemed to hesitate. Then he sprang from the gully toward the Coursers.

He was back almost at once, carrying Memla's leather flask of voure. With an air of disinterest, as if he eschewed responsibility, he handed it to Covenant.

Trembling, Covenant unstopped the flask. He had to apply a crushing force of will to steady his hands so that he could pour just a few drops through Linden's teeth. Then he watched in a trance of dread and hope as she fought to swallow.

Her back arched, went slack as if she had broken her spine.

His gaze darkened. The world spun in his head. His mind became the swooping and plunge of condors. He could not see, could not think, until he heard her whisper, “Now Cail.”

The Haruchai responded immediately. Her understanding of Cail's plight demonstrated her clarity of mind. Brinn took the flask, hurried to Cail's side. With Stell's help, he forced some of the voure between Cail's locked jaws.

Relaxation spread through Linden, muscle by muscle. Her breathing eased; the cords of her neck loosened. One by one, her fingers uncurled. Covenant lifted her hand, folded her broken nails in his clasp, as he watched the rigor slipping out of her. Her legs became limp along the sand. He held to her hand because he could not tell whether she were recovering or dying.

Then he knew. When Brinn came over to him and announced without inflection, “The voure is efficacious. He will mend,” he gave a low sigh of relief.

Twenty Three: Sarangrave Flat

COVENANT watched her while she slept, human and frail, until some time after sunset. Then, in the light of a campfire built by the Haruchai, he roused her. She was too weak for solid food, so he fed her metheglin diluted with water.

She was recovering. Even his blunt sight could not be mistaken about it. When she went back to sleep, he stretched out on the sand near her, and fell almost instantly into dreams.

They were dreams in which wild magic raged, savage and irremediably destructive. Nothing could be stopped, and every flare of power was the Despiser's glee. Covenant himself became a waster of the world, became Kevin on a scale surpassing all conceivable Desecrations. The white fire came from the passions which made him who he was, and he could not-!

But the stirring of the company awakened him well before dawn. Sweating in the desert chill, he climbed to his feet and looked around. The embers of the fire revealed that Linden was sitting up, with her back against the gully wall. Hergrom attended her soundlessly, giving her food.

She met Covenant's gaze. He could not read her expression in the dim light, did not know where he stood with her. His sight seemed occluded by the afterimages of nightmare. But the obscurity and importance of her face drew him to her. He squatted before her, studied her mien. After a moment, he murmured to explain himself, “I thought you were finished.”

“I thought,” she replied in a restrained voice, “I was never going to make you understand.”

“I know.” What else could he say? But the inadequacy of his responses shamed him. He felt so unable to reach her.

But while he fretted against his limitations, her hand came to him, touched the tangle of his beard. Her tone thickened. “It makes you look older.”

One of the Haruchai began to rebuild the fire. A red gleam reflected from her wet eyes as if they were aggravated by coals, were bits of fire in her mind. She went on speaking, fighting the emotion in her throat.

“You wanted me to look at Vain.” She nodded toward the Demondim-spawn; he stood across the gully from her. “I've tried. But I don't understand. He isn't alive. He's got so much power, and it's imperative. But it's-it's inanimate. Like your ring. He could be anything.”

Her hand covered her eyes. For a moment, she could not steady herself. “Covenant, it hurts. It hurts to see him. It hurts to see anything.” Reflections formed orange-red beads below the shadow of her hand.

He wanted to put his arms around her; but he knew that was not the comfort she needed. A Raver had touched her, had impaled her soul. Gibbon had told her that her health sense would destroy her. Gruffly, he answered, “It saved your life.”

Her shoulders clenched.

“It saved Cail's life.”

She shuddered, dropped her hand, let him see her eyes streaming in the new light of the fire. “It saved your life.”

He gazed at her as squarely as he could, but said nothing, gave her all the time she required.

“After Crystal Stonedown.” The words came huskily past her lips. “You were dying. I didn't know what to do.” A grimace embittered her mouth. “Even if I'd had my bag-Take away hospitals, labs, equipment, and doctors aren't much good.” But a moment later she swallowed her insufficiency. "I didn't know what else to do. So I went inside you. I felt your heart and your blood and your lungs and your nerves-Your sickness. I kept you alive. Until Hollian was able to help you."

Her eyes left his, wandered the gully like guilt. “It was horrible. To feel all that ill. Taste it. As if I were the one who was sick. It was like breathing gangrene.” Her forehead knotted in revulsion or grief; but she forced her gaze back to his visage. “I swore I would never do anything like that again as long as I lived.”

Paul made him bow his head. He glared into the shadows between them. A long moment passed before he could say without anger, “My leprosy is that disgusting to you.”

“No.” Her denial jerked his eyes up again. “It wasn't leprosy. It was venom.”

Before he could absorb her asseveration, she continued, “It's still in you. It's growing. That's why it's so hard to look at you.” Fighting not to weep, she said hoarsely, “I can't keep it out. Any of it. The Sunbane gets inside me. I can't keep it out. You talk about desecration. Everything desecrates me.”

What can I do? he groaned. Why did you follow me? Why did you try to save my life? Why doesn't my leprosy disgust you? But aloud he tried to give her answers, rather than questions. “That's how Foul works. He tries to turn hope into despair. Strength into weakness. He attacks things that are precious, and tries to make them evil.” The Despiser had used Kevin's love of the Land, used the Bloodguard's service, the Giants' fidelity, used Elena's passion, to corrupt them all. And Linden had looked at Vain because he, Covenant, had asked it of her. "But that knife cuts both ways. Every time he tries to hurt us is an opportunity to fight him. We have to find the strength of our weakness. Make hope out of despair.

“Linden.” He reached out with his half-hand, took one of her hands, gripped it. “It doesn't do any good to try to hide from him. ”It boots nothing to avoid his snares. “If you close your eyes, you'll just get weaker. We have to accept who we are. And deny him.” But his fingers were numb; he could not tell whether or not she answered his clasp.

Her head had fallen forward. Her hah-hid her face.

“Linden, it saved your life.”

“No.” Her voice seemed to be muffled by the predawn dusk and the shadows. “You saved my life. I don't have any power. All I can do is see.” She pulled her hand away. “Leave me alone,” she breathed. “It's too much. I'll try.”

He wanted to protest. But her appeal moved him. Aching stiffly in all his joints, he stood up and went to the fire for warmth.

Looking vaguely around the gully, he noticed the Stonedownors. The sight of them stopped him.

They sat a short distance away. Sunder held the rukh. Faint red flames licked the triangle. Hollian supported him as she had when he had first attuned himself to the rukh.

Covenant could not guess what they were doing. He had not paid any attention to them for too long, had no idea what they were thinking.

Shortly, they dropped their fires. For a moment, they sat gazing at each other, holding hands as if they needed courage.

“It cannot be regretted.” Her whisper wafted up the gully like a voice of starlight. “We must bear what comes as we can.”

“Yes,” Sunder muttered. “As we can.” Then his tone softened. “I can bear much-with you.” As they rose to their feet, he drew her to him, kissed her forehead.

Covenant looked away, feeling like an intruder. But the Stonedownors came straight to him; and Sunder addressed him with an air of grim purpose. “Ur-Lord, this must be told. From the moment of your request”- he stressed the word ironically — "that I take up this rukh, there has been a fear in me. While Memla held her rukh, the Clave knew her. Therefore the Grim came upon us. I feared that in gaining mastery of her rukh I, too, would become known to the Clave.

“Covenant-” He faltered for only an instant. “My fear is true. We have ascertained it. I lack the skill to read the purpose of the Clave-but I have felt their touch, and know that I am exposed to them.”

“Ur-Lord,” asked Hollian quietly, “what must we do?”

“Just what we've been doing.” Covenant hardly heard her, hardly heard his answer. “Run. Fight, if we have to.” He was remembering Linden's face in convulsions, her rigid mouth, the sweat streaks in her hair. And wild magic. “Live.”

Fearing that he was about to lose control, he turned away.

Who was he, to talk to others about living and striving, when he could not even handle the frightening growth of his own power? The venom! It was part of him now. As the wild magic became more possible to him, everything else seemed more and more impossible. He was so capable of destruction. And incapable of anything else.

He picked up a jug of metheglin and drank deeply to keep himself from groaning aloud.

He was thinking, Power corrupts. Because it is unsure. It is not enough. Or it is too much. It teaches doubt. Doubt makes violence.

The pressure for power was growing in him. Parts of him were hungry for the rage of wild fire.

For a time, he was so afraid of himself, of the consequences of his own passions, that he could not eat. He drank the thick mead and stared into the flames, trying to believe that he would be able to contain himself.

He had killed twenty-one people. They were vivid to him now in the approaching dawn. Twenty-one! Men and women whose only crime had been that their lives had been deformed by a Raver.

When he raised his head, he found Linden standing near him.

She was insecure on her feet, still extremely weak; but she was able to hold herself upright. She gazed at him soberly. As he dropped his eyes, she said with an echo of her old severity, “You should eat something.”

He could not refuse her. He picked up a piece of dried meat. She nodded, then moved woodenly away to examine Cail. Covenant chewed abstractly while he watched her.

Cail appeared to be both well and ill. He seemed to have recovered from the Sunbane sickness, regained his native solidity and composure. But his injury was still hotly infected; voure had no efficacy against the poison of the Courser's spur.

Linden glared at the wound as if it wrung her nerves, then demanded fire and boiling water. Hergrom and Ceer obeyed without comment. While the water heated, she borrowed Hollian's dirk, burned it clean in the flames, then used it to lance Cail's infection. He bore the pain stoically; only a slight tension between his brows betrayed what he felt. Blood and yellow fluid splashed a stain onto the sand. Her hands were precise in spite of her weakness. She knew exactly where and how deeply to cut.

When the water was ready, she obtained a blanket from Brinn. Slashing the material into strips, she used some of them to wash out the wound; with others, she made a crude bandage. Fine beads of sweat mirrored the firelight from Cail's forehead; but he did not wince. He did not appear to be breathing.

“You'll be all right as soon as we stop the infection.” Her voice sounded impersonal, as if she were reading from some medical tome. “You're healthy enough for any five people.” Then her severity frayed. “This is going to hurt. If I could think of any way to kill the pain, I'd do it. But I can't. I left everything in my bag.”

“Have no concern, Linden Avery,” Cail replied evenly. “I am well. I will serve you.”

“Serve yourself!” she grated at once. “Take care of that arm.” As she spoke, she made sure that his bandage was secure. Then she poured boiling water over the fabric.

Cail made no sound. She stumbled to her feet, moved away from him and sat down against the gully wall, as if she could not bear the sight of his courage.

A moment later, Vain caught Covenant's attention. The first light of the sun touched Vain's head, etched it out of the gloaming-a cynosure of blackness and secrets. Sunder and Hollian went quickly to find rock. Covenant helped Linden erect. The Haruchai stood. All the company faced the dawn.

The sun broached the rim of the gully, wearing brown like the cerements of the world. Thirst and hallucination, bleached bones, fever-blisters. But Linden gasped involuntarily, “It's weaker!”

Then, before Covenant could grasp what she meant, she groaned in disappointment. “No. I must be losing my mind. It hasn't changed.”

Changed? Her bitterness left him in a whirl of anxiety as the quest broke camp, mounted the Coursers, and set off eastward. Was she so badly stressed by fear that she could no longer trust her eyes? In her convulsions, sweat had darkened her hair like streaks of damp anguish. But she seemed to be recovering. Her wound had been relatively minor. The company rode the sun-trammelled wasteland of the North Plains as if they were traversing an anvil. Why did he know so little about her?

But the next morning she was steadier, surer. She carried her head as if it had ceased to pain her. When she faced the dawn and saw the third desert sun rise, her whole body tensed. “I was right,” she gritted. “It is weaker.” A moment later, she cried, “There!” Her arm accused the horizon. “Did you see it? Right there, it changed! It was weaker and then it became as strong as ever. As if it crossed a boundary.”

No one spoke. Sunder and Hollian watched Linden as if they feared that the Sunbane sickness had affected her mind. The Haruchai gazed at her without expression.

“I saw it.” Her voice stiffened. “I'm not crazy.”

Covenant winced. “We don't have your eyes.”

She glared at him for an instant, then turned on her heel and strode away toward the waiting Coursers.

Now she rode as if she were angry. In spite of the dry brutality of the sun and the strain of clinging to Clash's back, her strength was returning. And with it came ire. Her ability to see had already cost her so much; and now her companions appeared to doubt what she saw. Covenant himself half disbelieved her. Any weakening of the Sunbane was a sign of hope. Surely therefore it was false? After what she had been through?

When the company stopped for the night, she ate a meal, tended Cail's arm, and set herself to sleep. But long before dawn, she was pacing the dead shale as if she were telling the moments until a revelation. Her tension articulated clearly how much she needed to be right, how sorely her exacerbated soul needed relief.

That morning, the sun rose in red pestilence. It tinged the stark outlines of the wilderland crimson, making the desert roseate, lovely, and strange, like a gilded burial ground; but though he strained his sight until his brain danced with images of fire, Covenant could not descry any lessening of the Sunbane. Yet Linden gave a fierce nod as if she had been vindicated. And after a moment, Brinn said impassively, “The Chosen is farsighted.” He used her title like a recognition of power. “The corruption about the sun has lessened.”

“I am surpassed,” Sunder muttered in frustration. “I do not see this lessening.”

“You will,” Linden replied. “We're getting closer.”

Covenant was suddenly dizzy with hope. “Closer to what?” Was the Sunbane failing?

“Inquire of the Chosen.” Brinn's shrug disavowed all responsibility for what he saw. “We know nothing of this.”

Covenant turned to her.

“I'll tell you.” She did not meet his gaze. “When I'm sure.”

He swallowed a curse, gritted himself still. It's too much, she had said. I'll try. He understood. She was trying. She wanted to trust what she saw and feared to be misled, to be hurt again. With difficulty, he left her alone.

She continued to stare eastward while the Haruchai distributed food, water, and voure. She ate heedlessly, ignoring Brinn's people as they readied the Coursers. But then, just as Sunder brought the beasts forward, her arm stabbed out, and she barked, “There!”

Brinn glanced at the sun. “Yes. The corruption regains its strength.”

Covenant groaned to himself. No wonder she did not wish to explain what she saw. How could she bear it?

Morosely, he mounted Clash behind Linden and Brinn. The quest moved out across the ragged wasteland.

Under this sun, the desert became a place of silence and scorpions. Only the rattle of the Coursers' hooves punctuated the windless air; and soon that noise became part of the silence as well. Insects scuttled over the rocks, or waded the sand, and made no sound. The sky was as empty of life as a tomb. Slowly, Covenant's mood became red and fatal. The Plains seemed eerie with all the blood he had shed. Involuntarily, he toyed with his ring, turning it around his finger as if his bones itched for fire. Yet he loathed killing, loathed himself. And he was afraid.

We have to accept who we are. Where had he learned the arrogance or at least the insensitivity to say such things?

That night, his memories and dreams made his skin burn as if he were eager for immolation, for a chance to anneal his old guilt in flame. Lena filled his sight as if she had been chiselled on the backs of his eyes. A child, in spite of her body's new maturity. He had struck her, knotted his hands in her shift and rent-The memory of her scream was distilled nightmare to him. A moral leper.

You are mine.

He was a creature of wild magic and doubt; and the long night, like the whole Land stretched helpless under the Sunbane, was also a desert.

But the next morning, when the sun rose in its crimson infestation, he, too, could see that its aurora was weaker. It seemed pale, almost uncertain. Sunder and Hollian could see it as well.

And this time the weakness did not vanish until mid-morning. Ascending from the first quarter of the sky, the aura crossed a threshold; and the Sunbane closed over the Plains like a lid. Intuitions tried to clarify themselves in Covenant's head; he felt that he should have been able to name them. But he could not. Lacking Linden's eyes, he seemed also to lack the ability to interpret what he saw. A strange blindness -

That evening, the company reached Landsdrop.

Now Covenant knew where he was. Landsdrop was the precipice which separated the Upper Land in the west from the Lower Land in the east. It stretched roughly north-northwest from deep in the Southron Range far toward the unexplored Northron Climbs. Many leagues south of him, Mount Thunder, ancient Gravin Threndor, crouched against the cliff, kneeling with its knees on the Lower Land and its elbows on the Upper. Deep in its dark roots lay the place where the Illearth Stone had been found. And deep in its dark heart was the secret chamber of Kiril Threndor, where Lord Foul the Despiser now made his home.

The sun was setting as the quest halted. The shadow of Landsdrop, three or four thousand feet high in this region, obscured all the east. But Covenant knew what lay ahead. The deadly marsh of Sarangrave Flat.

In past ages, the Sarangrave had become what it was — a world of intricate waterways, exotic life, and cunning peril-through the effects of the river called the Denies Course. This water emerged between the knees of Mount Thunder from the catacombs in the bowels of the mountain, where it had run through Wightwarrens and Demondim breeding dens, through charnals and offal pits, laboratories and forges, until it was polluted by the most irrefragable filth. As sewage spread throughout the Flat from the river, it corrupted a once-fair region, changed a marsh home for egrets and orchids into a wild haven for the misborn. During the last wars, Lord Foul had found much of the raw material for his armies in Sarangrave Flat.

Covenant knew about the Flat because at one time he had seen it for himself, from Landsdrop to the south of Mount Thunder. He had seen with Land-sharpened eyes, vision he no longer possessed. But he had other knowledge of the region as well. He had heard some things during his visits to Revelstone. And he had learned more from Runnik of the Bloodguard. At one time, Runnik had accompanied Korik and two Lords, Hyrim and Shetra, on a mission to Seareach, to ask the aid of the Giants against Lord Foul. Lord Shetra had been slain in the Sarangrave, and Runnik had barely survived to bring back the tale.

Covenant's guts squirmed at the thought of the Sarangrave under a sun of pestilence. Beyond doubt, he was going to have to tell Runnik's tale to his companions.

The Haruchai set camp a stone's throw from the great cliff because Covenant refused to go any closer in the dark; he already felt too susceptible to the lure of precipices. After he had eaten, fortified himself with metheglin, he huddled near the jumping allusions of the campfire, wrapped his memories around him, and asked the quest to listen.

Linden sat down opposite him. He wanted to feel that she was nearby; but the intervening fire distanced her. Sunder and Hollian were vague at the edges of his sight. His attention narrowed to the crackling wood and the recollection of Runnik's tale.

Fist and faith, the Bloodguard had said. We will not fail. But they had failed. Covenant knew that now. They had failed, and fallen into Corruption, and died. The Vow had been broken. And the Giants had been slain.

But such things were not part of what he had to tell. To control the old ache of remembrance, he envisioned Runnik's face before him. The Bloodguard had stood, with a pang in his eyes, before High Lord Elena, Lord Mhoram, Hile Troy, and the Unbeliever. A bonfire had made the night poignant. Covenant could recall Runnik's exact words. The attacks of the lurker. The fall of Lord Shetra. Bloody hell.

In a dull tone, he told the essentials of that tale. When he had first seen the Sarangrave, it had been a place of fervid luxuriance and subtle death: alive with shy water-bred animals and malicious trees; adorned with pools of clear poison; waylaid with quicksand; spangled with flowers of loveliness and insanity. A place where nature had become vastly treacherous, polluted and hungry. But not evil. It was blameless in the same way that storms and predators were blameless. The Giants, who knew how to be wary, had always been able to travel the Flat.

But forty years later, when Korik's mission had looked out from Landsdrop, the Sarangrave had changed. Slumbering ill had been stirred to wakefulness. And this ill, which Runnik had called the lurker of the Sarangrave, had snatched Lord Shetra to her death, despite the fact that she had been under the protection of fifteen Bloodguard. Fifteen-The lurker had been alert to strength, attracted to power. First the Ranyhyn, then the Bloodguard themselves, had unwittingly brought peril down on Korik's mission. And of the messengers Korik had sent to carry the tale back to the High Lord, only Runnik had survived.

After Covenant fell silent, his companions remained still for a moment. Then Hollian asked unsurely, “May we not ride around this place of risk?”

Covenant did not raise his head. “That used to be a hundred leagues out of the way. I don't know what it is now.” Had Sarangrave Flat grown or dwindled under the Sunbane?

“We have not such time,” Sunder said immediately. “Do you desire to confront a second Grim? The Clave reads us as we speak of such matters. When I place my hand upon the iron, I feel the eyes of the Banefire fixed in my heart. They hold no benison.”

“The Clave can't-” Linden began, then stopped herself.

“The Clave,” Covenant responded, “kills people every day. To keep that bloody Banefire going. How many lives do you think a hundred leagues are going to cost?”

Hollian squirmed. “Mayhap this lurker no longer lives? The Sunbane alters all else. Will not Sarangrave Flat be altered also?”

“No,” Linden said. But when Covenant and the Stonedownors looked at her sharply, she muttered, “I'll tell you about it in the morning.” Wrapping blankets around her as if they were a buckler against being touched, she turned away.

For a while after Sunder and Hollian had gone to their rest, Covenant sat and watched the fire die, striving with himself, trying to resist the way Landsdrop plucked at the bottom of his mind, to guess what Linden had learned about the Sunbane, to find the courage he needed for the Sarangrave.

You are mine.

He awoke, haggard and power-haunted, shortly before dawn and found that Linden and the Stonedownors, with Cail, Harn, and Stell, had already left their beds to stand on the edge of Landsdrop. The air was cold; and his face felt stiff and dirty, as if his beard were the grip of his dreams, clutching his visage with, unclean fingers. Shivering, he arose, slapped his arms to warm them, then accepted a drink of metheglin from Brinn.

As Covenant drank, Brinn said, “Ur-Lord.”

His manner caught Covenant's attention like a hand on his shoulder. Brinn looked as inscrutable as stone in the crepuscular air; yet his very posture gave an impression of importance.

“We do not trust these Coursers.”

Covenant frowned. Brinn had taken him by surprise.

“The old tellers,” Brinn explained, "know the tale which Runnik of the Bloodguard told to High Lord Elena. We have heard that the mission to the Giants of Seareach was betrayed to the lurker of the Sarangrave by Earthpower. The Earthpower of the Ranyhyn was plain to all who rode them. And the Vow of the Bloodguard was a thing of Earthpower.

“But we have sworn no life-shaping Vow. The wild magic need not be used. The Graveller and the eh-Brand need not employ their lore. The lurker need not be aware of us.”

Covenant nodded as he caught Brinn's meaning. “The Coursers,” he muttered. “Creatures of the Sunbane. You're afraid they'll give us away.”

“Yes, ur-Lord.”

Covenant winced, then shrugged. “We don't have any choice. We'll lose too much time on foot.”

Brinn acquiesced with a slight bow. For an instant, the Haruchai seemed so much like Banner that Covenant almost groaned. Bannor, too, would have voiced his doubt-and then would have accepted Covenant's decision without question. Suddenly, Covenant felt that his Dead were coming back to life, that Bannor was present in Brinn, impassive and infrangibly faithful; that Elena was reborn in Linden. The thought wrenched his heart.

But then a shout snatched him toward Landsdrop.

The sun was rising.

Gritting himself against incipient vertigo, he hurried to join his companions on the lip of the cliff.

Across the east, the sun came up in pale red, as if it had just begun to ooze blood. Light washed the top of the precipice, but left all the Lower Land dark, like a vast region where night was slowly sucked into the ground. But though he could see nothing of the Flat, the sun itself was vivid to him.

Its aura was weaker.

Weaker than it had been the previous morning.

Linden stared intently at it for a moment, then whirled and sent her gaze arcing up and down the length of Landsdrop. Covenant could hear insects burring as if they had been resurrected from the dead ground.

“By God.” She was exultant. “I was right.”

He held himself still, hardly daring to exhale.

“This is the line.” She spoke in bursts of excitement, comprehension. “Landsdrop. It's like a border.” Her hands traced consequences in the air. “You'll see. When the sun passes over the cliff-at noon-the Sunbane will be as strong as ever.”

Covenant swallowed thickly. “Why?”

“Because the atmosphere is different. It doesn't have anything to do with the sun. That corona is an illusion. We see it because we're looking at the sun through the atmosphere. The Sunbane is in the air. The sun doesn't change. But the air-”

He did not interrupt. But in the back of his mind he sifted what she said. Some of it made sense: the power required literally to change the sun was inconceivable.

“The Sunbane is like a filter. A way of warping the normal energy of the sun. Corrupting it.” She aimed her words at him as if she were trying to drive insight through his blindness. “And it's all west from here. The Upper Land. What you see out there”- she jerked her head eastward — “is just spill-over. That's why it looks weak. The Clave won't be able to reach us anymore. And the Sarangrave might be just as you remember it.”

All-? Covenant thought. But how? Winds shift-storms-

Linden seemed to see his question in his face. “It's in the air,” she insisted. “But it's like an emanation. From the ground. It must have something to do with the Earthpower you keep talking about. It's a corruption of the Earthpower.”

A corruption of the Earthpower! At those words, his head reeled, and his own vague intuitions came into focus. She was right. Absolutely. He should have been able to figure it out for himself. The Staff of Law had been destroyed-

And Lord Foul had made his new home in Mount Thunder, which crouched on the edge of Landsdrop, facing west. Naturally, the Despiser would concentrate his Sunbane on the Upper Land. Most of the east already lay under his power. It was all so clear. Only a blind man could fail to see such things.

For a long moment, other facets of the revelation consumed him. Lord Foul had turned the Earthpower itself against the Land.

The Sunbane was limited in its reach. But if it became intense enough, deep enough-

But then he seemed to hear for the first time something else Linden had said. The Sarangrave might be -

Bloody hell! He forced himself into motion, drove his reluctant bones toward Landsdrop so that he could look over the edge.

The shadow of the horizon had already descended halfway down the cliff. Faint, pink light began to reflect off the waters of the Sarangrave. Pale jewels, rosy and tenuous, spread across the bottom of the shadow, winking together to form reticular lines, intaglios, like a map of the vanishing night. Or a snare. As the sun rose, the gems yellowed and grew more intricate. In links and interstices, they articulated the venous life of the Flat-explication, trap, and anatomy in one. Then all the waterways burned white, and the sun itself shone into Sarangrave Flat.

After five days in the wasted plains, Covenant felt that the lush green and water below him were exquisite, lovely and fascinating, as only adders and belladonna could be. But Linden stood beside him, staring white-eyed at the marsh. Her lips said over and over again, Oh, my God. But the words made no sound.

Covenant's heart turned over in fear. “What do you see?”

“Do you want to go down there?” Horror strangled her voice. “Are you crazy?”

“Linden!” he snapped, as if her dread were an accusation he could not tolerate. The backs of his hands burned venomously, lusting of their own volition to strike her. Was she blind to the pressures building in him? Deaf to the victims of the Clave? “I can't see what you see.”

“I'm a doctor,” she panted as if she were bleeding internally. “Or I was. I can't bear all this evil”

No! His anger vanished at the sight of her distress. Don't say that. You'll damn us both. “I understand. Better than anybody. Tell me what it is.”

She did not raise her eyes, would not look at him. “It's alive.” Her voice was a whisper of anguish. “The whole thing's alive.” Gibbon had promised her that she would destroy the Land. “It's hungry.” Covenant knew nothing about her. “It's like a Raver.”

A Raver? He wanted to shout, What kind of person are you? Why did Foul choose you? But he crushed himself to quietness. “Is it a Raver?”

She shook her head. She went on shaking her head, as if she could not reach the end of all the things she wanted to deny. “Ravers are more-” She had to search herself for an adequate description, “-more specific. Self-conscious. But it's still possession,” She said that word as if it sickened her. Her hands fumbled toward her mouth. “Help me.”

“No.” He did not mean to refuse her; his arms ached to hold her. But that was not what she needed. “You can stand it. That old man chose you for a reason.” Groping for ways to succour her, he said, “Concentrate on it. Use what you see to help yourself. Know what you're up against. Can that thing see us? Is it that specific? If we try to cross — will it know we're there?”

She closed her eyes, covered them to shut out the sight. But then she forced herself to look again. Struggling against revulsion, she jerked out, “I don't know. It's so big. If it doesn't notice us-If we don't attract its attention-”

If, he finished for her, we don't show the kind of power it feeds on. Yes. But a sudden vision of wild magic stunned him. He did not know how long he could contain the pressure. With a wrench, he made himself move, turned to Brinn, then winced at the way his voice spattered emotion. “Get the Coursers ready. Find a way down there. As soon as we eat, we're going through.”

Swinging away from the Haruchai, he almost collided with Sunder and Hollian. They were leaning against each other as if for support. The knots at the corners of Sunder's jaw bulged; a frown of apprehension or dismay incused his forehead. The young eh-Brand's features were pale with anxiety.

The sight was momentarily more than Covenant could bear. Why was he forever so doomed to give pain? With unwanted harshness, he rasped, “You don't have to go.”

Sunder stiffened. Hollian blinked at Covenant as if he had just slapped her face. But before he could master himself enough to apologize, she reached out and placed her hand on his arm. “Ur-Lord, you miscomprehend us.” Her voice was like the simple gesture of her touch. “We have long and long ago given up all thought of refusing you.”

With an effort, Sunder loosened the clenching of his teeth. “That is sooth. Do you not understand this of us? The peril is nothing. We have sojourned so far beyond our knowledge that all perils are become equal. And Linden Avery has said that soon we will be free of the threat of the Clave.”

Covenant stared at the Graveller, at the eh-Brand.

“No, Covenant,” Sunder went on. “Our concern is otherwise. We journey where the Sunbane does not obtain. We do not love the Sunbane. We are not mad. But without it-” He hesitated, then said, “What purpose do we serve? What is our value to you? We have not forgotten Andelain. The Sunbane has made us to be who we are. Perhaps under another sun we will merely burden you.”

The frankness of their uncertainty touched Covenant. He was a leper; he understood perfectly what they were saying. But he believed that the Sunbane could be altered, had to believe that it was not the whole truth of their lives. How else could he go on? Against the sudden thickness in his throat, he said, “You're my friends. Let's try it and see.”

Fumbling for self-control, he went to get something to eat.

His companions joined him. In silence, they ate as if they were chewing the gristle of their apprehensions.

Shortly, Ceer brought word of a path down the cliff. Hergrom and Cail began to load the Coursers. Long before Covenant had found any courage, the quest was mounted and moving.

Ceer, Hergrom, and Cail led the way on Annoy. With Linden's care and the native health of the Haruchai, Cail had essentially recovered from his wound. Brinn, Linden, and Covenant followed on Clash. Then came Harn and Hollian on Clangor, Stell and Sunder on Clang. Vain brought up the rear.

They went northward for half a league to a wide trail cut into the face of Landsdrop. This was a vestige of one of the ancient Giantways, by which the Unhomed had travelled between Seareach and Revelstone. Covenant locked his hands in Clash's hair, and fought his vertigo as the company began to descend.

The sheer drop to the Lower Land pulled at him constantly. But the trail had been made by Giants; though it angled and doubled steeply, it was wide enough for the huge Coursers. Still, the swing of Clash's back made him feel that he was about to be pitched over the edge. Even during a brief rest, when Brinn halted the company to refill the waterskins from a rill trickling out of the cliff-face, the Flat seemed to reel upward at him like a green storm. He spun, sweating, down the last slope and lurched out into the humid air of the foothills with a pain in his chest, as if he had forgotten how to breathe.

The foothills were clear for some distance before they rolled down into the peril of the Sarangrave. Brinn took the Coursers forward at a clattering run, as if he meant to plunge straight into the verdant sea. But he stopped on the verge of the thick marshgrass which lapped the hills. For a moment, he surveyed the quest, studying Vain briefly, as if he wondered what to expect from the Demondim-spawn. Then he addressed Linden.

“Chosen,” he said with flat formality, “the old tellers say that the Bloodguard had eyes such as yours. That is not true of us. We understand caution. But we also understand that your sight surpasses ours. You must watch with me, lest we fall to the snares of the Sarangrave.”

Linden swallowed. Her posture was taut, keyed beyond speech by dread. But she answered with a stiff nod.

Now Clash led. Covenant glared out past Linden and Brinn, past Clash's massive head, toward the Sarangrave. The hillside descended into a breeze-ruffled lake of marshgrass, and beyond the grass stood the first gnarled brush of the Flat. Dark shrubs piled toward trees which concealed the horizon. The green of their leaves seemed vaguely poisonous under the pale red sun. In the distance, a bird cried, then fell silent. The Sarangrave was still, as if it waited with bated breath. Covenant could hardly force himself to say, “Let's go.”

Brinn nudged Clash forward. Bunched together like a fist, the company entered Sarangrave Flat.

Clash stepped into the marshgrass, and immediately sank to its knees in hidden mire.

“Chosen,” Brinn murmured in reproof as the Courser lumbered backward to extricate itself.

Linden winced. “Sorry. I'm not-” She took a deep breath, straightened her back. “Solid ground to the left.”

Clash veered in that direction. This time, the footing held. Soon, the beast was breasting its way through chest-high grass.

An animal the size of a crocodile suddenly thrashed out from under Clash's hooves-a predator with no taste for such large prey. Clash shied; but the rukh steadied it quickly. Clinging to his seat, Covenant forced his gaze ahead and tried not to believe that he was riding into a morass from which there was no outlet and no escape.

Guided by Linden's senses, Brinn led the company toward the trees. In spite of past suns, the growth here was of normal size; yet even to Covenant's blunt perceptions, the atmosphere felt brooding and chancrous, like an exhalation of disease, the palpable leprosy of pollution.

As they reached the trees, the quest passed under thickening blotches of shade. At first, clear ground lay between the trunks, wind-riffled swaths of bland grass concealed things at which Covenant could not guess. But as the riders moved inward, the trees intensified. The grass gave way to shallow puddles, stretches of mud which sucked like hunger at the hooves of the Coursers. Branches and vines variegated the sky. At the edges of hearing came the sounds of water, almost subliminal, as if wary behemoths were drinking from a nearby pool. The ambience of the Sarangrave settled in Covenant's chest like a miasma.

Abruptly, an iridescent bird blundered, squalling, skyward out of the brush. His guts lurched. Sweating, he gaped about him. The jungle was complete; he could not see more than fifty feet in any direction. The Coursers followed a path which wandered out of sight between squat grey trees with cracked bark and swollen trunks. But when he looked behind him, he could see no sign of the way he had come. The Sarangrave sealed itself after the company. Somewhere not far away, he could hear water dripping, like the last blood from Marid's throat.

His companions' nerves were raw. Sunder's eyes seemed to flinch from place to place. Hollian's mien wore a look of unconscious fright, as if she were a child expecting to be terrified. Linden sat hunched forward, gripping Brinn's shoulders. Whenever she spoke, her voice was thin and tense, etiolated by her vulnerability to the ill on all sides. Yet Vain looked as careless as the accursed, untouched even by the possibility of wrong.

Covenant felt that his lungs were filling up with moisture.

The Coursers seemed to share his difficulty. He could hear them snuffling stertorously. They grew restive by degrees, choppy of gait, alternately headstrong and timorous. What do they-? he began. But the question daunted him, and he did not finish it.

At noon, Brinn halted the company on a hillock covered with pimpernels, and defended on two sides by a pool of viscid sludge which smelled like tar. In it, pale flagellant creatures swam. They broke the surface, spread sluggish ripples about them, then disappeared. They looked like corpses, wan and necrotic, against the darkness of the fluid.

Then Linden pointed through the branches toward the sun. When Covenant peered at the faint aura, he saw it change, just as she had predicted. The full power of the Sunbane returned, restoring pestilence to the Sarangrave.

At the sight, a nameless chill clutched his viscera. The Sarangrave under a sun of pestilence-

Hollian's gasp yanked the company toward her. She was gaping at the pool, with her knuckles jammed between her teeth.

At every spot where sunlight touched the dark surface, pale creatures rose. They thrust blind heads into the light, seemed to yearn upward. A slight wind ruffled the trees, shifting pieces of sunshine back and forth. The creatures flailed to follow the spots of light.

When any creature had kept its head in the light for several moments, it began to expand. It swelled like ripening fruit, then split open, scattering green droplets around the pool. The droplets which fell in shadow quickly turned black and faded. But the ones which fell in light became bright-Covenant closed his eyes; but he could not shut out the sight. Green flecks danced against red behind his eyelids. He looked again. The droplets were luminescent and baleful, like liquid emeralds. They grew as they swam, feeding on sludge and pestilence.

“Good God!” Horror compacted Linden's whisper. “We've got to get out of here!”

Her tone carried complete conviction. The Haruchai sprang into motion. Sunder called the Coursers forward. Cail boosted first Linden, then Covenant, upward, so that Clash would not have to kneel. Stell and Ham did the same for the Stonedownors.

Skirting the pool, Brinn guided the beasts eastward as swiftly as he dared, deeper into the toils of Sarangrave Hat.

Fortunately, the Sunbane seemed to steady the Coursers, enforcing the hold of Sunder's rukh. Their ponderous skittishness eased. When malformed animals scuttled out from under their hooves, or shrieking birds flapped past their heads, they remained manageable. After half a league, the riders were able to eat a meal without dismounting.

As they ate, Covenant looked for a way to question Linden. But she forestalled him. “Don't ask.” Spectres haunted the backs of her eyes. “It hurt. I just knew we were in danger. I don't want to know what it was.”

He nodded. The plight of the company required her to accept visions which wrung her soul. She was so exposed. And he had no way to help her.

The Haruchai passed around a pouch of voure. As he dabbed the pungent sap on his face and arms, Covenant became aware that the air was alive with butterflies.

Fluttering red and blue, yellow like clean sunshine, gleams of purple and peacock-green, they clouded the spaces between the trees like particoloured snow, alert and lovely. The dance of the Sarangrave-Sarangrave Flat under a sun of pestilence. The insects made him feel strangely bemused and violent. They were beautiful. And they were born of the Sunbane. The venom in him answered their entrancement as if, despite himself, he yearned to fry every lambent wing in sight. He hardly noticed when the company began moving again through the clutches of the marsh. At one time, he had watched helplessly while Wraiths died. Now every memory increased the pressure in him, urged him toward power. But in this place power was suicide.

Piloted by Bruin's caution and Linden's sight, the questors worked eastward. For a time, they travelled the edges of a water channel clogged with lilies. But then the channel cut toward the north, and they were forced to a decision. Linden said that the water was safe. Brinn feared that the lily-stems might fatally tangle the legs of the Coursers.

The choice was taken out of their hands. Hergrom directed their attention northwestward. For a moment, Covenant could see nothing through the obscure jungle. Then he caught a glimpse.

Fragments of livid green. The same green he had watched aborning in the pool of tar.

They were moving. Advancing-

Linden swore urgently. “Come on.” She clinched Brinn's shoulders. “Cross. We've got to stay away from those things.”

Without hesitation, Brinn sent Clash into the water.

At once, the Courser's legs were toiled in the stems. But the channel was shallow enough to give the beast a purchase on its bottom. Clash fought forward in a series of violent heaves, thrashing spray in all directions.

The other mounts followed to the east bank. Cascading water from their thick coats, they began to move as swiftly as Sarangrave Plat allowed.

Through stretches of jungle so dense that the trees seemed to claw at the quest, and the creepers dangled like garrottes. Across waving greenswards intricately beset with quagmires. Along the edges of black bogs which reeked like carrion eaters, pools which fulminated trenchantly. Into clear streams, slime-covered brooks, avenues of mud. Everywhere the riders went, animals fled from them; birds betrayed them in raucous fear or outrage; insects hove and swarmed, warded away only by the smell of voure.

And behind them came glimpses of green, elusive spangles, barely seen, as if the company were being stalked by emeralds.

Throughout the afternoon, they wrestled with the Flat; but, as far as Covenant could see, they gained nothing except a sense of panic. They could not outdistance those iridescent green blinks. He felt threats crawling between his shoulder blades. From time to time, his hands twitched as if they ached to fight, as if he knew no other answer to fear except violence.

In the gloaming of sunset, Brinn halted the company for supper. But no one suggested that they should make camp. The pursuit was more clearly visible now.

Green shapes the size of small children, burning inwardly like swamp lights, crept furtively through the brush-creatures of emerald stealth and purpose. Scores of them. They advanced slowly, like a malison that had no need for haste.

A thin rain began to fall, as if the ambience of the Sarangrave were sweating in eagerness.

One of the Coursers snorted. Annoy stamped its feet, tossed its head. Covenant groaned. Shetra had been one of the most potent Lords of Elena's Council, adept at power. Fifteen Bloodguard and Lord Hyrim had been unable to save her.

He clutched at his mount and yearned forward as Brinn and Linden picked their way through the drizzle.

Water slowly soaked his hair and trickled into his eyes. The susurrus of the rain filled the air like a sigh. Everything else had fallen still. The advance of the lambent green creatures was as silent as gravestones. Sunder began to mutter at the Coursers, warning them to obedience.

“Quicksand,” Linden gritted. “To the right.”

Through his knees, Covenant could feel Clash trembling.

For a moment, the quicksand made a sucking noise. Then the sound of the rain intensified. It became an exhalation of wet lust. Behind the drizzle, Sarangrave Flat waited.

The creatures were within a stone's throw of the company and drawing closer.

A gasp stiffened Linden. Covenant jerked his gaze ahead, searched the night.

In the distance lay a line of green lights.

It cut the quest off from the east.

The line arced to the north, spreading out to join the pursuit.

Hellfire!

The company had ridden into a snare. Flickering through the trees and brush and rain, the fires began to contract around the riders like a noose. They were being herded southward.

Clangor stumbled to its knees, then lurched upright again, blowing fearfully.

Linden panted curses under her breath. Covenant heard them as if they were the voice of the rain. She was desperate, dangerously close to hysteria. Opening her senses in this place must have violated her like submitting to a rape.

A stream he could not see gave an undertone to the rain, then faded. For a time, the beasts slapped through shallow water between knurled old cypresses. The drizzle fell like chrism, anointing the company for sacrifice. He did not want to die like this, un-shriven and without meaning. His half-hand clenched and loosened around his ring like an unconscious prophecy.

Linden continued instructing Brinn, barking what she saw into his ear as if that were her only defence against the mad night; but Covenant no longer heard her. He twisted in his seat, trying to gauge the pursuit. The rain sounded like the sizzling of water against hot gems. If he fell from Clash's back, the creatures would be on him in moments.

Out of the darkness, Sunder croaked, “Heaven and Earth!” A noise like a whimper broke from Hollian.

Covenant turned and saw that the south, too, was lined with green fires. They pent the company on all sides.

The terrain had opened; nothing obscured the encirclement. To one side, streaks of green reflected off a small pond. The water seemed to be leering. The creatures advanced like leprosy. The night held no sound except the sighing of the rain.

Clang danced like a nervous colt. Annoy snorted heavily, winced from side to side. But Sunder kept the Coursers under control. He urged them forward until they stood in the centre of the green circle. There he stopped.

In a flat voice, Brinn said, “Withhold your power. The lurker must not be made to notice us.”

Linden panted as if she could hardly breathe.

The creatures came seething noiselessly through the dark. The ones beyond the water stopped at its edge; the others continued to approach. They were featureless and telic, like lambent gangrene. They looked horribly like children.

Hergrom dismounted, became a shadow moving to meet the line. For a moment, he was limned by slime fire. Rain stippled his silhouette.

Then Linden coughed, “No! Don't touch them!”

“Chosen.” Brinn's voice was stone. “We must breach this snare. Hergrom will make trial, that we may learn how to fight.”

“No” Her urgency suffocated her. “They're acid. They're made out of acid.”

Hergrom stopped.

Pieces of darkness whirled at him from Ceer's direction. He caught them, two brands from the quest's store of firewood.

Hefting them by their ends, he confronted the creatures.

Stark against the green, he swung one of the faggots like a club, striking the nearest child-form.

It burst like a wineskin, spilling emerald vitriol over the ground. His brand broke into flame.

The creatures on either side appeared not to care that one of them had fallen. But they promptly shifted to close the gap.

He struck with the other brand, ruptured another shape. Then he returned, bearing the faggots like torches.

In the firelight, Covenant saw that the company stood in an incongruously open stretch of grass. Beyond the advancing children, black trees crouched like craven ghouls. The pool on his left was larger than he had guessed it to be. Scant inches below its surface lay thick, dark mud. A quagmire.

The green creatures sought to herd the quest into it.

As if he could read Covenant's thoughts, Brinn said warningly, “Ur-Lord. Withhold.”

Covenant tried to reply, could not. His lungs were full of moisture. His chest tugged at the air. He seemed to be asphyxiating on rain. Water ran down his face like blood sweat.

No, it was not the rain. It was the air itself, strangling him.

Gradually, the drizzle changed pitch. It began to sound like a cry. From deep in the night, a wail rose toward the sky.

It was in Covenant's lungs. The very air was howling. He could hear Sunder gasp, feel Linden's muscles jerking to breathe, taste his own acrid fear.

The lurker.

Damnation!

The cry scaled upward in pitch and passion, became a throttling scream. It clawed the depths of his chest, sucked at his courage like quicksand.

Panic.

The company stood like sacrificial cattle, trembling and dumb, while the acid-creatures advanced.

An instant later, Clash's distress became a convulsion. Bucking savagely, the Courser scattered Linden and Covenant to the grass, then sprang insanely against Clang. With Brinn clinging to its neck, Clash knocked Sunder and Stell from Clang's back. At once, the rampaging Courser tried to leap over Clang.

Covenant regained his feet in time to see Clangor go mad. Ignoring Hollian's cries and Ham's commands, the beast plunged against Clash and Clang and drove them to their knees.

Suddenly, all four mounts were possessed by a mad frenzy to attack Sunder and Stell. Annoy crashed squealing into the roil of Coursers. Ceer and Cail dove free. Stell and Harn snatched Hollian out from under Clangor's hooves.

Vain stood near the edge of the pool, watching the confusion as if it pleased him.

Covenant could not understand why the acid-creatures did not charge. They continued to approach incrementally, but did not take this opportunity to attack.

Brinn still clung to Clash's neck, fending off the teeth of the other Coursers with his free hand. The Haruchai appeared insignificant, helpless, amid the madness of the beasts.

Darkness gathered in Covenant like venom. It leaped instinctively toward his ring. White gold. Power.

He wanted to shout, but could not get enough air. The howl of the lurker made the rain ring, choked his chest, covered his skin with formication.

He cocked his arm. But Linden, catching his half-hand in both her fists, gasped at him like hysteria, “No!”

The force of her desperation struck him still and cold. A gelid wind blew in his mind. Use it! Pressure threatened to burst him. His ring. Don't! But the lurker-

The lurker was already aware. It was-

Why was it aware? What had alerted it?

Diving forward, Ceer joined Brinn among the Coursers. Together, the two of them began casting down sacks of supplies and bundles of firewood.

Before they could finish, the tangle abruptly clarified itself. Clangor surged to its feet, followed by Annoy. Clash and Clang heaved upright.

Driven mad by the rain and the piercing shriek of the lurker, they assailed Sunder.

The Graveller ducked under Clangor, dodged Annoy, so that the beasts collided with each other. But the grass was slick under his feet. As he tried to spin out of the way, he went down. A chaos of hooves exploded around him.

Linden clinched Covenant's arm as if he had tried to break free. But he had not, could not have moved to save his life. The acid-children- The howl-Coursers whirling. Rain swarming against his skin.

What had alerted-?

Stell appeared somehow among the beasts, stood over Sunder, and fought to protect him; he heaved legs aside, punched at heads, forced animals against each other.

Brinn and Ceer sought to distract the Coursers. But their insane fury at Sunder consumed them. He rolled from side to side, avoiding blows. But their savagery was too great.

The Coursers! Covenant gagged. His eyes bulged under the pressure of asphyxiation, vertigo. Creatures of the Sunbane. Corrupted Earthpower. The lurker was alert to such power.

Then this attack was directed against the Coursers. And they knew it. They were mad with fear.

Why didn't they flee?

Because they were held!

Hellfire!

Covenant sprang into motion with a wrench that knocked Linden to the ground. His eyes locked onto Sunder. He could not breathe, had to breathe. The howl filled his lungs, strangling him. But he could not let Sunder die. With a convulsion of will, he ripped words out of himself.

“The rukh! Throw it away!”

Sunder could not have heard him. The screaming of the lurker drowned every other sound. The Graveller jerked over onto his chest as if he had been pounded by a hoof, then jerked back again.

With the rukh in his hands, Stell snatched it from him, hurled it. Arcing over the Coursers, it splashed into the centre of the quagmire.

Instantly, the beasts wheeled. They charged after the iron as if it were the lure of their doom. In their terror, they strove to destroy the thing which prevented them from flight.

One of them smashed into Vain.

He made no effort to evade the impact. In his habitual pose, he stood as if no power on Earth could touch him. But the beast was a creature of the Sunbane, made feral and tremendous by fear. Its momentum knocked him backward.

He toppled into the pool.

The Coursers crashed after him, drove him down with their hooves. Then they, too, were caught in the quagmire.

At once, the water began to boil. Turbulence writhed across the surface, wringing screams from the Coursers; upheavals squirmed as if the quag were about to erupt. One by one, the beasts were wrenched downward, disappearing in dark froth like blood. Sucking noises came from the pool as if it were a gullet.

Moments later, the turmoil ended. The water relaxed with a sigh of satiation.

When the heaving subsided, Vain stood alone in the centre of the pool.

He was sinking steadily. But the unfocus of his eyes was as blind as ever in the light of the torches. The water reached his chest. He did not struggle or cry out.

“Brinn!” Covenant panted. But the Haruchai were already moving. Harn pulled a coil of rope from one of the rescued sacks and threw it to Brinn. Promptly, but without haste, Brinn unwound one end of the rope and tossed it toward Vain.

The rope landed across Vain's shoulder.

He did not blink, gave no sign that he had seen it. His arms remained at his sides. The diffusion of his gaze was as complete as the quagmire.

“Vain!” Linden's protest sounded like a sob. The Demondim-spawn did not acknowledge it.

Brinn snatched back the rope, swiftly made a loop with a slipknot. The water lapped at Vain's neck as the Haruchai prepared to throw again.

With a flick, Brinn sent the rope snaking outward. The loop settled around Vain's head. Carefully, Brinn tugged it taut, then braced himself to haul on the rope. Ceer and Harn joined him.

Abruptly, Vain sank out of sight.

When the Haruchai pulled, the rope came back empty. The loop was intact.

Until he heard himself swearing, Covenant did not realize that he could breathe.

The howling of the lurker was gone. The acid-creatures were gone. They had vanished into the night.

There was nothing left except the rain.

Twenty Four: The Search

COVENANT hugged his chest in an effort to steady his quivering heart. His lungs seized air as if even the rain of the Sarangrave were sweet.

Through the stillness, he heard Hollian moan Sunder's name. As Sunder groaned, she gasped, “You are hurt.”

Covenant squeezed water out of his eyes, peered through the torchlight at the Graveller.

Pain gnarled Sunder's face. Together, Hollian and Linden were removing his jerkin. As they bared his ribs, they exposed a livid bruise where one of the Coursers had kicked him.

“Hold still,” Linden ordered. Her voice shook raggedly, as if she wanted to scream. But her hands were steady. Sunder winced instinctively at her touch, then relaxed as her fingers probed his skin without hurting him. “A couple broken,” she breathed. “Three cracked.” She placed her right palm over his lung. “Inhale. Until it hurts.”

He drew breath; a spasm knotted his visage. But she gave a nod of reassurance. “You're lucky. The lung isn't punctured.” She demanded a blanket from one of the Haruchai, then addressed Sunder again. “I'm going to strap your chest-immobilize those ribs as much as possible. It's going to hurt. But you'll be able to move without damaging yourself.” Stell handed her a blanket, which she promptly tore into wide strips. Caring for Sunder seemed to calm her. Her voice lost its raw edge.

Covenant left her to her work and moved toward the fire Hergrom and Ceer were building. Then a wave of reaction flooded him, and he had to squat on the wet grass, hunch inward with his arms wrapped around his stomach to keep himself from whimpering. He could hear Sunder hissing thickly through his teeth as Linden bound his chest; but the sound was like the sound of the rain, and Covenant was already soaked. He concentrated instead on the way his heart flinched from beat to beat, and fought for control. When the attack passed, he climbed to his feet, and went in search of metheglin.

Brinn and Ceer had been able to save only half the supplies; but Covenant drank freely of the mead which remained. The future would have to fend for itself. He was balanced precariously on the outer edge of himself and did not want to fall.

He had come within instants of calling up the wild magic-of declaring to the lurker that the Coursers were not the only available prey. If Linden had not stopped him-The drizzle felt like mortification against his skin. If she had not stopped him, he and his companions might already have met Lord Shetra's doom. His friends-he was a snare for them, a walking deathwatch. How many of them were going to die before Lord Foul's plans fructified?

He drank metheglin as if he were trying to drown a fire, the fire in which he was fated to burn, the fire of himself. Leper outcast unclean. Power and doubt. He seemed to feel the venom gnawing hungrily at the verges of his mind.

Vaguely, he watched the Haruchai fashion scant shelters out of the remaining blankets, so that the people they guarded would not have to lie in rain. When Linden ordered Sunder and Hollian to rest, he joined them.

He awoke, muzzy-headed, in the dawn. The two women were still asleep-Linden lay like a battered wife with her hair sticking damply to her face-but Sunder was up before him. The rain had stopped. Sunder paced the grass slowly, carrying his damaged ribs with care. Concentration or pain accentuated his forehead.

Covenant lurched out of his sodden bed and shambled to the supplies for a drink of water. Then, because he needed companionship, he went to stand with the Graveller.

Sunder nodded in welcome. The lines above his nose seemed to complicate his vision. Covenant expected him to say something about the rukh or the Coursers; but he did not. Instead, he muttered tightly, “Covenant, I do not like this Sarangrave. Is all life thus, in the absence of the Sunbane?”

Covenant winced at the idea. It made him think of Andelain. The Land was like the Dead; it lived only in Andelain, where for a while yet the Sunbane could not stain or ravish. He remembered Caer-Caveral's song:

But while I can I heed the call

Of green and tree; and for their worth,

I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.

The mourning of that music brought back grief and old rage. Was he not Thomas Covenant, who had beaten the Despiser and cast Foul's Creche into the Sea? “If it is,” he answered to the tone of dirges, poisons, “I'm going to tear that bastard's heart out.”

Distantly, the Graveller asked, “Is hate such a good thing? Should we not then have remained at Revelstone, and given battle to the Clave?”

Covenant's tongue groped for a reply; but it was blocked by recollections. Unexpectedly, he saw turiya Raver in the body of Triock, a Stonedownor who had loved Lena. The Raver was saying, Only those who hate are immortal. His ire hesitated. Hate? With an effort, he took hold of himself. “No. Whatever else happens, I've already got too much innocent blood on my hands.”

“I hear you,” Sunder breathed. His wife and son were in his eyes; he had reason to understand Covenant's denial.

Sunlight had begun to angle into the clearing through the trees, painting streaks across the damp air. A sunrise free of the Sunbane. Covenant stared at it for a moment, but it was indecipherable to him.

The sun roused Linden and Hollian. Soon the company began to prepare for travel. No one spoke Vain's name, but the loss of him cast a pall over the camp. Covenant had been trying not to think about it. The Demondim-spawn was unscrupulous and lethal. He smiled at unreined power. But he was also a gift from Saltheart Foamfollower. And Covenant felt irrationally shamed by the thought that he had let a companion, any companion, sink into that quagmire, even though Linden had said that Vain was not alive.

A short time later, the Haruchai shouldered the supplies, and the quest set off. Now no one spoke at all. They were afoot in Sarangrave Flat, surrounded by hazards and by the ears of the lurker. Betrayals seemed to wait for them behind every tree, in every stream. None of them had the heart to speak.

Brian and Cail led the way, with Linden between them. Turning slightly north of east, they crossed the clearing, and made their way back into the jungle.

For a while, the morning was white and luminous with sun-gilt mist. It shrouded the trees in evanescence. The company seemed to be alone in the Flat, as if every other form of life had fled. But as the mist frayed into wisps of humidity and faded, the marsh began to stir. Birds rose in brown flocks or individual blurs of colour; secretive beasts scurried away from the travellers. At one point, the quest encountered a group of large grey monkeys, feeding at a thicket of berries as scarlet as poison. The monkeys had canine faces and snarled menacingly. But Brinn walked straight toward them with no expression in his flat eyes. The monkeys broke for the trees, barking like hyenas.

For most of the morning, the company edged through a stretch of jungle with solid ground underfoot. But during the afternoon, they had to creep across a wide bog, where hillocks of sodden and mangy grass were interspersed with obscure pools and splotches of quicksand. Some of the pools were clear; others, gravid and mephitic. At sudden intervals, one or another of them was disturbed, as if something vile lay on its bottom. Linden and the Haruchai were hard pressed to find a safe path through the region.

In the distance behind them, the sun passed over Landsdrop and took on the blue aura of rain. But the sky over Sarangrave Flat stayed deep cerulean, untainted and unscathed.

By sunset, they had travelled little more than five leagues.

It would have been better, Covenant thought as he chewed his disconsolate supper, if we'd ridden around. But he knew that such regrets had no meaning. It would have been better if he had never harmed Lena or Elena-never lost Joan-never contracted leprosy. The past was as indefeasible as an amputation. But he could have borne his slow progress more lightly if so many lives, so much of the Land, had not been at stake.

That night came rain. It filled the dark, drenched the dawn, and did not lift until the company had been slogging through mud for half the morning.

In the afternoon, they had to wade a wetland of weeds and bulrushes. The water covered Covenant's thighs; the rushes grew higher than his head. A preterite fear of hidden pits and predators scraped at his nerves. But the company had no choice; this swamp blocked their way as far as the Haruchai could see.

The density of the rushes forced them to move in single file. Brinn led, followed immediately by Linden and Cail; then went Harn, Hollian, Stell, Sunder, Covenant, Ceer, and Hergrom. The water was dark and oily; Covenant's legs vanished as if they had been cut off at the waterline. The air was clouded with mosquitoes; and the marsh stank faintly, as if its bottom were littered with carcasses. The sack perched high on Stell's shoulders blocked Covenant's view ahead; he did not know how far he would have to go like this. Instinctively, he tried to hurry, but his boots could not keep their footing in the mud, and the water was as heavy as blood.

The mirk dragged at his legs, stained his clothes. His hands clutched the reeds involuntarily, though they could not have saved him if he fell. His mind cursed at thoughts of Vain. The Demondim-spawn had not even looked at the people who were trying to rescue him. Covenant's pulse laboured in his temples.

Without warning, the rushes beside him thrashed. The water seethed. A coil as thick as his thigh broke the surface.

Instantly, Sunder was snatched out of sight.

Twenty feet away, he heaved up again, with a massive serpent body locked around his hips and neck. Gleaming scales covered strength enough to snap his back like a dry stick.

All the celerity of the Haruchai seemed insignificant to Covenant. He saw Stell release his sack, crouch, start a long dive forward, as if each piece of the action were discrete, time-consuming. Ceer carried no sack; he was one fraction of a heartbeat ahead of Stell. Hollian's mouth stretched toward a scream. Every one of the reeds was distinct and terrible. The water had the texture of filthy wool. Covenant saw it all: wet scales; coils knotted to kill; Ceer and Stell in the first reach of their dives; Hollian's mouth-

Marid! A man with no mouth, agony in his eyes, snakes for arms. Fangs agape for Linden's face. Sunder. Marid. Fangs fixed like nails of crucifixion in Covenant's right forearm.

Venom.

In that instant, he became a blaze of fury.

Before Ceer and Stell covered half the distance, Covenant fried the coils straining Sunder's back. Wild magic burned the flesh transparent, lit spine, ribs, entrails with incandescence.

Linden let out a cry of dismay.

The serpent's death throes wrenched Sunder underwater.

Ceer and Stell dove into the convulsions. They disappeared, then regained their feet, with the Graveller held, gasping, between them. Dead coils thudded against their backs as they bore Sunder out of danger.

All Covenant's power was gone, snuffed by Linden's outcry. Cold gripped the marrow of his bones. Visions of green children and suffocation. Bloody hell.

His companions gaped at him. Linden's hands squeezed the sides of her head, fighting to contain her fear. Covenant expected her to shout abuse at him. But she did not. “It's my fault.” Her voice was a low rasp. “I should have seen that thing.”

“No.” Stell spoke as if he were immune to contradiction. "It came when you had passed. The fault is mine. The Graveller was in my care."

Hellfire, Covenant groaned uselessly. Hell and damnation.

With an effort, Linden jerked down her hands and forced herself to the Graveller's side. He breathed in short gasps over the pain in his chest. She examined him for a moment, scowling at what she perceived. Then she muttered, “You'll live.” Outrage and helplessness made her voice as bitter as bile.

The Haruchai began to move. Stell retrieved his sack. Brinn reformed the line of the company. Holding herself rigid, Linden took her place. They went on through the swamp.

They tried to hurry. But the water became deeper, holding them back. Its cold rank touch shamed Covenant's skin. Hollian could not keep her feet; she had to cling to Ham's sack and let him pull her. Sunder's injury made him wheeze as if he were expiring.

But finally the reeds gave way to an open channel; and a short distance beyond it lay a sloping bank of marshgrass. The bottom dropped away. The company had to swim.

When they gained solid ground, they saw that all their apparel was covered with a slick brown slime. It stank in Covenant's nostrils. Linden could not keep the nausea off her mien.

With characteristic dispassion, the Haruchai ignored their uncleanliness. Brinn stood on the bank, studying the west. Hergrom moved away until he reached a tree he could climb. When he returned, he reported flatly that none of the green acid-creatures were in sight.

Still the company hurried. Beyond the slope, they dropped into a chaos of stunted copses and small poisonous creeks which appeared to run everywhere without moving. Twilight came upon them while they were still winding through the area, obeying Linden's strident command to let no drop of the water touch them.

In the dusk, they saw the first sign of pursuit. Far behind them among the copses was a glimpse of emerald. It disappeared at once. But no one doubted its meaning. “Jesus God,” Linden moaned. “I can't stand it.”

Covenant cast an intent look at her. But the gloaming obscured her face. The darkness seemed to gnaw at her features.

In silence, the quest ate a meal and tried to prepare to flee throughout the night.

Dark tensed about them as the sunset was cut off by Landsdrop. But then, strangely, the streams began to emit light. A nacreous glow, ghostly and febrile, shone out of the waters like diseased phosphorescence. And this light, haunting the copses with lines of pearly filigree, seemed to flow, though the water had appeared stagnant. The glow ran through the region, commingling and then separating again like a web of moonlight, but tending always toward the northeast.

In that direction, some distance away, Sarangrave Flat shone brightly. Eldritch light marked the presence of a wide radiance.

Covenant touched Brinn's arm, nodding toward the fire. Brinn organized the company, then carefully led the way forward.

Darkness made the distance deceptive; the light was farther away than it appeared to be. Before the questers covered half the intervening ground, tiny emerald fires began to gather behind them. Shifting in and out of sight as they passed among the copses, the acid-creatures stole after the company.

Covenant closed his mind to the pursuit, locked his gaze on the silver ahead. He could not endure to think about the coining attack-the attack which he had made inevitable.

Tracking the glow lines of the streams as if they were a map, Brinn guided the quest forward as swiftly as his caution permitted.

Abruptly, he stopped.

Pearl-limned, he pointed ahead. For a moment, Covenant saw nothing. Then he caught his breath between his teeth to keep himself still.

Stealthy, dark shapes were silhouetted between the company and the light. At least two of them, as large as saplings.

Firmly, Hergrom pressed Covenant down into a crouch. His companions hid against the ground. Covenant saw Brinn gliding away, a shadow in the ghost-shine. Then the Haruchai was absorbed by the copses and the dark.

Covenant lost sight of the moving shapes. He stared toward where he had last seen them. How long would Brinn take to investigate and return?

He heard a sound like a violent expulsion of breath.

Instinctively, he tried to jump to his feet. Hergrom restrained him.

Something heavy fell through underbrush. Blows were struck. The distance muffled them; but he could hear their strength.

He struggled against Hergrom. An instant later, the Haruchai released him. The company rose from hiding. Cail and Ceer moved forward. Stell and Harn followed with the Stonedownors.

Covenant took Linden's hand and pulled her with him after Sunder.

They crossed two streams diagonally, and then all the glowing rills lay on their right. The flow of silver gathered into three channels, which ran crookedly toward the main light. But the quest had come to firm ground. The brush between the trees was heavy. Only the Haruchai were able to move silently.

Near the bank of the closest stream, they found Brinn. He stood with his fists on his hips. Nacre reflected out of his flat eyes like joy-He confronted a figure twice as tall as himself. A figure like a reincarnation in the eldritch glow. A dream come to life. Or one of the Dead.

A Giant!

“The old tellers spoke truly,” Brinn said. “I am gladdened.” The Giant folded his thick arms over his chest, which was as deep and solid as the trunk of an oak. He wore a sark of mail, formed of interlocking granite discs, and heavy leather leggings. Across his back, he bore a huge bundle of supplies. He had a beard like a fist. His eyes shone warily from under massive brows. The blunt distrust of his stance showed that he and Brinn had exchanged blows-and that he did not share Brinn's gladness.

“Then you have knowledge which I lack.” His voice rumbled like stones in a subterranean vault. “You and your companions.” He glanced over the company. “And your gladness”- he touched the side of his jaw with one hand — “is a weighty matter.”

Suddenly, Covenant's eyes were full of tears. They blinded him; he could not blink away visions of Saltheart Foamfollower-Foamfollower, whose laughter and pure heart had done more to defeat Lord Foul and heal the Land than any other power, despite the fact that his people had been butchered to the last child by a Giant-Raver wielding a fragment of the Illearth Stone, thus fulfilling the unconscious prophecy of their home in Seareach, which they had named Coercri, The Grieve.

All killed, all the Unhomed. They sprang from a sea-faring race, and in their wandering they had lost their way back to their people. Therefore they had made a new place for themselves in Seareach where they had lived for centuries, until three of their proud sons had been made into Giant-Ravers, servants of the Despiser. Then they had let themselves be slain, rather than perpetuate a people who could become the thing they hated.

Covenant wept for them, for the loss of so much love and fealty. He wept for Foamfollower, whose death had been gallant beyond any hope of emulation. He wept because the Giant standing before him now could not be one of the Unhomed, not one of the people he had learned to treasure.

And because, in spite of everything, there were still Giants in the world.

He did not know that he had cried aloud until Hollian touched him. “Ur-Lord. What pains you?”

“Giant!” he cried. “Don't you know me?” Stumbling, he went past Linden to the towering figure. “I'm Thomas Covenant.”

“Thomas Covenant.” The Giant spoke like the murmuring of a mountain. With gentle courtesy, as if he were moved by the sight of Covenant's tears, he bowed. “The giving of your name honours me. I take you as a friend, though it is strange to meet friends in this fell place. I am Grimmand Honninscrave.” His eyes searched Covenant. “But I am disturbed at your knowledge. It appears that you have known Giants, Giants who did not return to give their tale to their people.”

“No,” Covenant groaned, fighting his tears. Did not return? Could not. They lost their way, and were butchered. “I've got so much to tell you.”

“At another time,” rumbled Honninscrave, “I would welcome a long tale, be it however grievous. The Search has been scarce of story. But peril gathers about us. Surely you have beheld the skest? By mischance, we have placed our necks in a garrotte. The time is one for battle or cunning rather than tales.”

“Skest?” Sunder asked stiffly over the pain of his ribs. “Do you speak of the acid-creatures, which are like children of burning emerald?”

“Grimmand Honninscrave.” Brinn spoke as if Sunder were not present. “The tale of which the ur-Lord speaks is known among us also. I am Brinn of the Haruchai. Of my people, here also are Cail, Stell, Harn, Ceer, and Hergrom. I give you our names in the name of a proud memory.” He met Honninscrave's gaze. “Giant,” he concluded softly, “you are not alone.”

Covenant ignored both Brinn and Sunder. Involuntarily, only half conscious of what he was doing, he reached up to touch the Giant's hand, verify that Honninscrave was not a figment of silvershine and grief. But his hands were numb, dead forever. He had to clench himself to choke down his sorrow.

The Giant gazed at him sympathetically. “Surely,” he breathed, “the tale you desire to tell is one of great rue. I will hear it-when the time allows.” Abruptly, he turned away. "Brinn of the Haruchai, your name and the names of your people honour me. Proper and formal sharing of names and tales is a joy for which we also lack time. In truth, I am not alone.

“Come!” he cried over his shoulder.

At his word, three more Giants detached themselves from the darkness of the trees and came striding forward.

The first to reach his side was a woman. She was starkly beautiful, with hair like fine-spun iron, and stern purpose on her visage. Though she was slimmer than he, and slightly shorter, she was fully caparisoned as a warrior. She wore a corselet and leggings of mail, with greaves on her arms; a helm hung from her belt, a round iron shield from her shoulders. In a scabbard at her side, she bore a broadsword nearly as tall as Covenant.

Honninscrave greeted her deferentially. He told her the names which the company had given him, then said to them, “She is the First of the Search. It is she whom I serve.”

The next Giant had no beard. An old scar like a sword cut lay under both his eyes across the bridge of his nose. But in countenance and apparel he resembled Honninscrave closely. His name was Cable Seadreamer. Like Honninscrave, he was unarmed and carried a large load of supplies.

The fourth figure stood no more than an arm's reach taller than Covenant. He looked like a cripple. In the middle of his back, his torso folded forward on itself, as if his spine had crumbled, leaving him incapable of upright posture. His limbs were grotesquely muscled, like tree boughs being choked by heavy vines. And his mien, too, was grotesque-eyes and nose misshapen, mouth crookedly placed. The short hair atop his beardless head stood erect as if in shock. But he was grinning, and his gaze seemed quaintly gay and gentle; his ugliness formed a face of immense good cheer.

Honninscrave spoke the deformed Giant's name: “Pitchwife.”

Pitchwife? Covenant's old empathy for the destitute and the crippled made him wonder, Doesn't he even rate two names?

“Pitchwife, in good sooth,” the short Giant replied as if he could read Covenant's heart. His chuckle sounded like the running of a clear spring. “Other names have I been offered in plenty, but none pleased me half so well.” His eyes sparkled with secret mirth. “Think on it, and you will comprehend.”

“We comprehend.” The First of the Search spoke like annealed iron. “Our need now is for flight or defence.”

Covenant brimmed with questions. He wanted to know where these Giants had come from, why they were here. But the First's tone brought him back to his peril. In the distance, he caught glimpses of green, a line forming like a noose,

“Flight is doubtful,” Brinn said dispassionately. “The creatures of this pursuit are a great many.”

“The skest, yes,” rumbled Honninscrave. “They seek to herd us like cattle.”

“Then,” the First said, “we must prepare to make defence.”

“Wait a minute.” Covenant grasped at his reeling thoughts. “These skest. You know them. What do you know about them?”

Honninscrave glanced at the First, then shrugged. “Knowledge is a tenuous matter. We know nothing of this place or of its life. We have heard the speech of these beings. They name themselves skest. It is their purpose to gather sacrifices for another being, which they worship. This being they do not name.”

“To us”- Brinn's tone hinted at repugnance — “it is known as the lurker of the Sarangrave.”

“It is the Sarangrave.” Linden sounded raw, over-wrought. Days of intimate vulnerability had left her febrile and defenceless. “This whole place is alive somehow.”

“But how do you even know that much?” Covenant demanded of Honninscrave. “How can you understand their language?”

“That also,” the Giant responded, “is not knowledge. We possess a gift of tongues, for which we bargained most acutely with the Elohim. But what we have heard offers us no present aid.”

Elohim. Covenant recognized that name. He had first heard it from Foamfollower. But such memories only exacerbated his sense of danger. He had hoped that Honninscrave's knowledge would provide an escape; but that hope had failed. With a wrench, he pulled himself into focus.

“Defence isn't going to do you any good either.” He tried to put force into his gaze. “You've got to escape.” Foamfollower died because of me. “If you break through the lines, they'll ignore you. I'm the one they want.” His hands made urging gestures he could not restrain. “Take my friends with you.”

“Covenant!” Linden protested, as if he had announced an intention to commit suicide.

“It appears,” Pitchwife chuckled, “that Thomas Covenant's knowledge of Giants is not so great as he believes.”

Brinn did not move; his voice held no inflection. “The ur-Lord knows that his life is in the care of the Haruchai. We will not leave him. The Giants of old also would not depart a companion in peril. But there is no bond upon you. It would sadden us to see harm come upon you. You must flee.”

“Yes!” Covenant insisted.

Frowning, Honninscrave asked Brinn, “Why does the ur-Lord believe that the skest gather against him?”

Briefly, Brinn explained that the company knew about the lurker of the Sarangrave.

At once, the First said, “It is decided.” Deftly, she unbound her helm from her belt, settled it on her head. “This the Search must witness. We will find a place to make defence.”

Brinn nodded toward the light in the northeast. The First glanced in that direction. “It is good.” At once, she turned on her heel and strode away.

The Haruchai promptly tugged Covenant, Linden, and the Stonedownors into motion. Flanked by Honninscrave and Seadreamer, with Pitchwife at their backs, the company followed the First.

Covenant could not resist. He was paralyzed with dread. The lurker knew of him, wanted him; he was doomed to fight or die. But his companions-the Giants-Foamfollower had walked into the agony of Hotash Slay for his sake. They must not-!

If he hurt any of his friends, he felt sure he would go quickly insane.

The skest came in pursuit. They thronged out of the depths of the Flat, forming an unbroken wall against escape. The lines on either side tightened steadily. Honninscrave had described it accurately: the questors were being herded toward the light,

Oh, hell!

It blazed up in front of them now, chasing the night with nacre, the colour of his ring. He guessed that the water glowed as it did precisely because his ring was present. They were nearing the confluence of the streams. On the left, the jungle retreated up a long hillside, leaving the ground tilted and clear as far ahead as he could see; but the footing was complicated by tangled ground creepers and protruding roots. On the right, the waters formed a lake the length of the hillside. Silver hung like a preternatural vapour above the surface. Thus concentrated, the light gave the surrounding darkness a ghoul-begotten timbre, as if such glowing were the peculiar dirge and lamentation of the accursed. It was altogether lovely and heinous.

A short way along the hillside, the company was blocked by a barrier of skest Viscid green fire ran in close-packed child forms from the water's edge up the hillside to curve around behind the quest.

The First stopped and scanned the area. “We must cross this water.”

“No!” Linden yelped at once. “We'll be killed.”

The First cocked a stern eyebrow. “Then it would appear,” she said after a moment of consideration, “that the place of our defence has been chosen for us.”

A deformed silence replied. Pitchwife's breathing whistled faintly in and out of his cramped lungs. Sunder hugged Hollian against the pain in his chest. The faces of the Haruchai looked like death masks. Linden was unravelling visibly toward panic.

Softly, invidiously, the atmosphere began to sweat under the ululation of the lurker.

It mounted like water in Covenant's throat, scaled slowly upward in volume and pitch. The skest poured interminably through the thick scream. Perspiration crawled his skin like formication. Venom beat in him like a fever.

Cable Seadreamer clamped his hands over his ears, then dropped them when he found he could not shut out the howl. A mute snarl bared his teeth.

Calmly, as if they felt no need for haste, the Haruchai unpacked their few remaining bundles of firewood. They meted out several brands apiece among themselves, offering the rest to the Giants. Seadreamer glared at the wood incomprehendingly; but Pitchwife took several faggots and handed the rest to Honninscrave. The wood looked like mere twigs in the Giants' hands.

Linden's mouth moved as if she were whimpering; but the yammer and shriek of the lurker smothered every other cry.

The skest advanced, as green as corruption.

Defying the sheen of suffocation on his face, Brinn said, “Must we abide this? Let us attempt these skest.”

The First looked at him, then looked around her. Without warning, her broadsword leaped into her hands, seemed to ring against the howl as she whirled it about her head. “Stone and Sea!” she coughed-a strangled battle cry.

And Covenant, who had known Giants, responded:

"Stone and Sea are deep in life,

two unalterable symbols of the world."

He forced the words through his anoxia and vertigo as he had learned them from Foamfollower.

“Permanence at rest, and permanence in motion;

participants in the Power that remains.”

Though the effort threatened to burst his eyeballs, he spoke so that the First would hear him and understand.

Her eyes searched him narrowly. “You have known Giants indeed,” she rasped. The howling thickened in her throat. “I name you Giantfriend. We are comrades, for good or ill.”

Giantfriend. Covenant almost gagged on the name. The Seareach Giants had given that title to Damelon father of Loric. To Damelon, who had foretold their destruction. But he had no time to protest. The skest were coming. He broke into a fit of coughing. Emeralds dizzied him as he struggled for breath. The howl tore at the marrow of his bones. His mind spun. Giantfriend, Damelon, Kevin; names in gyres. Linden Marid venom.

Venomvenomvenom.

Holding brands ready, Brinn and Ceer went out along the edge of the lake to meet the skest.

The other Haruchai moved the company in that direction.

Sweat running into Pitchwife's eyes made him wink and squint like a madman. The First gripped her sword in both fists.

Reft by vertigo, Covenant followed only because Hergrom impelled him.

Marid. Fangs.

Leper outcast unclean.

They were near the burning children now. Too near.

Suddenly, Seadreamer leaped past Brinn like a berserker to charge the skest.

Brinn croaked, “Giant!” and followed.

With one massive foot, Seadreamer stamped down on a creature. It ruptured, squirting acid and flame.

Seadreamer staggered as agony screamed up his leg. His jaws stretched, but no sound came from his throat. In an inchoate flash of perception, Covenant realized that the Giant was mute. Hideously, Seadreamer toppled toward the skest.

The lurker's voice bubbled and frothed like the lust of quicksand.

Brinn dropped his brands, caught Seadreamer's wrist. Planting his strength against the Giant's weight, he pivoted Seadreamer away from the creatures.

The next instant, Pitchwife reached them. With prodigious ease, the cripple swept his injured comrade onto his shoulders. Pain glared across Seadreamer's face; but he clung to Pitchwife's shoulders and let Pitchwife carry him away from the skest.

At the same time, Ceer began to strike. He splattered one of the acid-children with a back-handed blow of a brand. Conflagration tore half the wood to splinters. He hurled the remains at the next creature. As this skest burst, he was already snatching up another faggot, already striking again.

Stell and Brinn joined him. Roaring, Honninscrave slashed at the line with a double handful of wood, scattering five skest before the brands became fire and kindling in his grasp.

Together, they opened a gap in the lurker's noose.

The howl tightened in fury, raked the lungs of the company like claws.

Hergrom picked up Covenant and dashed through the breach. Cail followed, carrying Linden. Brinn and Ceer kept the gap open with the last of the firewood while Honninscrave and the First strode past the flames, relying on their Giantish immunity to fire. Pitchwife waded after them, with Seadreamer on his back.

Then the Haruchai had no more wood. Skest surged to close the breach, driven by the lurker's unfaltering shriek.

Stell leaped the gap. Harn threw Hollian bodily to Stell, then did the same with Sunder.

As one, Brinn, Ceer, and Harn dove over the creatures.

Already, the skest had turned in pursuit. The lurker gibbered with rage.

“Come!” shouted the First, almost retching to drive her voice through the howl. The Giants raced along the lakeshore, Pitchwife bearing Seadreamer with the agility of a Haruchai.

The company fled. Sunder and Hollian sprinted together, flanked by Harn and Stell. Covenant stumbled over the roots and vines between Brinn and Hergrom.

Linden did not move. Her face was alabaster with suffocation and horror. Covenant wrenched his gaze toward her to see the same look which had stunned her mien when she had first seen Joan, The look of paralysis.

Cail and Ceer took her arms and started to drag her forward.

She fought; her mouth opened to scream.

Urgently, the First gasped, “Ware!”

A wail ripped Hollian's throat.

Brinn and Hergrom leaped to a stop, whirled toward the lake.

Covenant staggered at the sight and would have fallen if the Haruchai had not upheld him.

The surface of the lake was rising. The water became an arm like a concatenation of ghost-shine- a tentacle with scores of fingers. It mounted and grew, reaching into the air like the howling of the lurker incarnate.

Uncoiling like a serpent, it struck at the company, at the people who were nearest.

At Linden.

Her mouth formed helpless mewling shapes. She struggled to escape. Cail and Ceer pulled at her. Unconsciously, she fought them.

As vividly as nightmare, Covenant saw her left foot catch in the fork of a root. The Haruchai hauled at her. In a spasm of pain, her ankle shattered. It seemed to make no sound through the rage of the lurker.

The arm lashed phosphorescence at her. Cail met the blow, tried to block it. The arm swatted him out of the way. He tumbled headlong toward the advancing skest.

They came slowly, rising forward like a tide.

Linden fought to scream, and could not.

The arm swung back again, slamming Ceer aside.

Then Honninscrave passed Covenant, charging toward Linden.

Covenant strove with all his strength to follow the Giant. But Brinn and Hergrom did not release him.

Instantly, he was livid with fury. A flush of venom pounded through him. Wild magic burned.

His power hurled the Haruchai away as if they had been kicked aside by an explosion.

The arm of the lurker struck. Honninscrave dove against it, deflected it. His weight bore it to the ground in a chiaroscuro of white sparks. But he could not master it. It coiled about him, heaved him into the air. The pain of its clutch seemed to shatter his face. Viciously, the arm hammered him down. He hit the hard dirt, bounced, and lay still.

The arm was already reaching toward Linden.

Blazing like a torch, Covenant covered half the distance to her. But his mind was a chaos of visions and vertigo. He saw Brinn and Hergrom blasted, perhaps hurt, perhaps killed. He saw fangs crucifying his forearm, felt venom committing murders he could not control.

The shining arm sprang on its fingers at Linden.

For one lurching beat of his heart, horror overcame him. All his dreads became the dread of venom, of wild magic he could not master, of himself. If he struck at the arm now, he would hit Linden. The power ran out of him like a doused flame.

The lurker's fingers knotted in her hair. They yanked her toward the lake. Her broken ankle remained caught in the root fork. The arm pulled, excruciating her bones. Then her foot twisted free.

Linden!

Covenant surged forward again. The howling had broken his lungs. He could not breathe.

As he ran, he snatched out Loric's krill, cast aside the cloth, and locked his fingers around the haft. Bounding to the attack, he drove the blade like a spike of white fire into the arm.

The air became a detonation of pain. The arm released Linden, wrenched itself backward, almost tore the krill out of his grasp. Argent poured from the wound like moon flame, casting arcs of anguish across the dark sky.

In hurt and fury, the arm coiled about him, whipping him from the ground. For an instant, he was held aloft in a crushing grip; the lurker clenched him savagely at the heavens. Then it punched him into the water.

It drove him down as if the lake had no bottom and no end. Cold burned his skin, plugged his mouth; pressure erupted in his ears like nails pounding into his skull; darkness drowned his mind. The lurker was tearing him in half.

But the gem of the krill shone bright and potent before him. Loric's krill, forged as a weapon against ill. A weapon.

With both hands, Covenant slammed the blade into the coil across his chest.

A convulsion loosened the grip. Lurker blood scoured his face.

He was still being dragged downward, forever deeper into the abysm of the lurker's demesne. The need for air shredded his vitals. Water and cold threatened to burst his bones. Pressure spots marked his eyes like scars of mortality and failure, failure, the Sunbane, Lord Foul laughing in absolute triumph.

No!

Linden in her agony.

No!

He twisted around before the lurker's grasp could tighten again, faced in the direction of the arm. Downward forever. The krill blazed indomitably against his sight.

With all the passion of his screaming heart-with everything he knew of the krill, wild magic, rage, venom-he slashed at the lurker's arm.

His hot blade severed the flesh, passed through the appendage like water.

Instantly, all the deep burned. Water flashed and flared; white coruscations flamed like screams throughout the lake. The lurker became tinder in the blaze. Suddenly, its arm was gone, its presence was gone.

Though he still held the krill, Covenant could see nothing. The lurker's pain had blinded him. He floated alone in depths so dark that they could never have held any light.

He was dying for air.

Twenty Five: “In the name of the Pure One”

MISERABLY, stubbornly, he locked his teeth against the water and began to struggle upward. He felt power-seared and impotent, could not seem to move through the rank depths. His limbs were dead for lack of air. Nothing remained to him except the last convulsion of his chest which would rip his mouth open-nothing except death, and the memory of Linden with her ankle shattered, fighting to scream.

In mute refusal, he went on jerking his arms, his legs, like a prayer for the surface.

Then out of the darkness, a hand snagged him, turned him. Hard palms took hold of his face. A mouth clamped over his. The hands forced his jaws open; the mouth expelled breath into him. That scant taste of air kept him alive.

The hands drew him upward.

He broke the surface and exploded into gasping. The arms upheld him while he sobbed for air. Time blurred as he was pounded in and out of consciousness by his intransigent heart.

In the distance, a voice-Hollian's? — called out fearfully, “Brinn? Brinn?”

Brinn answered behind Covenant's head. “The ur-Lord lives.”

Another voice said, “Praise to the Haruchai” It sounded like the First of the Search. “Surely that name was one of great honour among the Giants your people have known.”

Then Covenant heard Linden say as if she were speaking from the bottom of a well of pain, “That's why the water looked so deadly.” She spoke in ragged bursts through her teeth, fighting to master her hurt with words. “The lurker was there. Now it's gone.” In the silence behind her voice, she was screaming.

Gone. Slowly, the burn of air starvation cleared from Covenant's mind. The lurker was gone, withdrawn though certainly not dead; no, that was impossible; he could not have slain a creature as vast as the Sarangrave. The lake was lightless. The fires started by the spilling of skest acid had gone out for lack of fuel. Night covered the Flat. But somehow he had retained his grip on the krill. Its shining enabled him to see.

Beyond question, the lurker was still alive. When Brinn swam him to the shore and helped him out onto dry ground, he found that the atmosphere was too thick for comfort. Far away, he heard the creature keening over its pain; faint sobs seemed to bubble in the air like the self-pity of demons.

On either hand, skest gleamed dimly. They had retreated; but they had not abandoned the lurker's prey.

He had only injured the creature. Now it would not be satisfied with mere food. Now it would want retribution.

A torch was lit. In the unexpected flame, he saw Hergrom and Ceer standing near Honninscrave with loads of wood which they had apparently foraged from the trees along the hill crest. Honninscrave held a large stone firepot, from which Ceer lit torches, one after another. As Hergrom passed brands to the other Haruchai, light slowly spread over the company.

Dazedly, Covenant looked at the krill.

Its gem shone purely, as if it were inviolable. But its light brought back to him the burst of fury with which he had first awakened the blade, when Elena was High Lord. Whatever else Loric had made the krill to be, Covenant had made it a thing of savagery and fire. Its cleanliness hurt his eyes.

In silent consideration, Brinn reached out with the cloth Covenant had discarded. He took the krill and wrapped its heat into a neat bundle, as if thereby he could make the truth bearable for Covenant. But Covenant went on staring at his hands.

They were unharmed; free even of heat-damage. He had been protected by his own power; even his flesh had become so accustomed to wild magic that he guarded himself instinctively, without expense to any part of himself except his soul. And if that were true-He groaned.

If that were true, then he was already damned.

For what did damnation mean, if it did not mean freedom from the mortal price of power? Was that not what made Lord Foul what he was? The damned purchased might with their souls; the innocent paid for it with their lives. Therein lay Sunder's true innocence, though he had slain his own wife and son-and Covenant's true guilt. Even in Foul's Creche, he had avoided paying the whole price. At that time, only his restraint had saved him, his refusal to attempt Lord Foul's total extirpation. Without restraint, he would have been another Kevin Landwaster.

But where was his restraint now? His hands were undamaged. Numb with leprosy, blunt and awkward, incapable, yes; yet they had held power without scathe.

And Brinn offered the bundle of the krill to him as if it were his future and his doom.

He accepted it. What else could he do? He was a leper; he could not deny who he was. Why else had he been chosen to carry the burden of the Land's need? He took the bundle and tucked it back under his belt, as if in that way he could at least spare his friends from sharing his damnation. Then, with an effort like an acknowledgment of fatality, he forced himself to look at the company.

In spite of his bruises, Honninscrave appeared essentially whole. Seadreamer was able to stand on his acid-burned foot; and Pitchwife moved as if his own fire walk were already forgotten. They reminded Covenant of the caamora, the ancient Giantish ritual fire of grief. He remembered Foamfollower burying his bloody hands among the coals of a bonfire to castigate and cleanse them. Foamfollower had been horrified by the lust with which he had slaughtered Cavewights and he had treated his dismay with fire. The flames had hurt him, but not damaged him; when he had withdrawn his hands, they had been hale and clean.

Clean, Covenant murmured. He ached for the purification of fire. But he compelled his eyes to focus beyond the Giants.

Gazing directly at Brinn, he almost cried out. Both Brinn and Hergrom had been scorched by the lash of wild magic; eyebrows and hair were singed, apparel darkened in patches. He had come so close to doing them real harm-Like Honninscrave, Cail and Ceer were battered but intact. They held torches over Linden.

She lay on the ground with her head in Hollian's lap. Sunder knelt beside her, holding her leg still. His knuckles were white with strain; and he glowered as if he feared that he would have to sacrifice her for her blood.

The First stood nearby with her arms folded over her mail like an angry monolith, glaring at the distant skest.

Linden had not stopped talking: the pieces of her voice formed a ragged counterpoint to the moaning of the lurker. She kept insisting that the water was safe now, the lurker had withdrawn, it could be anywhere, it was the Sarangrave, but it was primarily a creature of water, the greatest danger came from water. She kept talking so that she would not sob.

Her left foot rested at an impossible angle. Bone splinters pierced the skin of her ankle, and blood oozed from the wounds in spite of the pressure of Sunder's grip.

Covenant's guts turned at the sight. Without conscious transition, he was kneeling at her side. His kneecaps hurt as if he had fallen. Her hands closed and unclosed at her sides, urgent to find something that would enable her to bear the pain.

Abruptly, the First left her study of the skest. “Giantfriend,” she said, “her hurt is sore. We have diamondraught. For one who is not of Giantish stature, it will bring swift surcease.” Covenant did not lift his eyes from Linden's embattled visage. He was familiar with diamondraught; it was a liquor fit for Giants. “Also, it is greatly healing,” the First continued, “distilled for our restitution.” Covenant heard glints of compassion along her iron tone. “But no healing known to us will repair the harm. Her bones will knit as they now lie. She-”

She will be crippled.

No. Anger mounted in him, resentment of his helplessness, rage for her pain. The exhaustion of his spirit became irrelevant. “Linden.” He hunched forward to make her meet his gaze. Her eyes were disfocused. “We've got to do something about your ankle.” Her fingers dug into the ground. “You're the doctor. Tell me what to do.” Her countenance looked like a mask, waxen and aggrieved. “Linden”

Her lips were as white as bone. Her muscles strained against Sunder's weight. Surely she could not bear any more.

But she breathed hoarsely, “Immobilize the leg.” Wails rose in her throat; she forced them down. “Above the knee.”

At once, Sunder shifted to obey. But the First gestured him aside. “The strength of a Giant is needed.” She wrapped Linden's leg in her huge hands, holding it like a vice of stone.

“Don't let me move.”

The company answered her commands. Her pain was irrefusable. Ceer grasped her shoulders. Harn anchored one of her arms; Sunder pinned the other. Brinn leaned along her uninjured leg.

“Give me something to bite.”

Hollian tore a strip from the fringe of her robe, folded it several times, and offered it to Linden's mouth.

“Take hold of the foot.” Dry dread filled her eyes. “Pull it straight away from the break. Hard. Keep pulling until all the splinters slip back under the skin. Then turn it into line with the leg. Hold the foot so the bones don't shift. When I feel everything's right-” She panted feverishly; but her doctor's training controlled her. “-I'll nod. Let go of the foot. Slowly. Put a splint on it. Up past the knee. Splint the whole leg.”

Immediately, she squeezed her eyes shut, opened her mouth to accept Hollian's cloth.

A nausea of fear twisted in Covenant's bowels; but he ignored it. “Right,” he grated. “I'll do it.” Her courage appalled Mm. He moved to her foot.

Cail brushed him away.

Curses jumped through Covenant's teeth; but Cail responded without inflection, “This I will do for her.”

Covenant's vitals trembled. His hands had held power enough to maim the lurker and had suffered no harm. “I said I'll do it.”

“No.” Cail's denial was absolute. “You have not the strength of the Haruchai. And the blame for this injury is mine.”

“Don't you understand?” Covenant could not find sufficient force for his remonstration. “Everything I touch turns to blood. All I do is kill.” His words seemed to drop to the ground, vitiated by the distant self-pity of the lurker. “She's here because she tried to save my life. I need to help her.”

Unexpectedly, Cail looked up and met Covenant's wounded gaze. “Ur-Lord,” he said as if he had judged the Unbeliever to the marrow of his bones, “you have not the strength.”

You don't understand! Covenant tried to shout. But no sound came past the knot of self-loathing in his throat. Cail was right; with his half-hand, he would not be able to grip Linden's foot properly; he could never help her, had not the strength. And yet his hands were unharmed. He could not resist when Pitchwife took hold of him, drawing him away from the group around Linden.

Without speaking, the malformed Giant led him to the campfire Honninscrave was building. Seadreamer sat there, resting his acid-burned foot. He gazed at Covenant with eloquent, voiceless eyes. Honninscrave gave Covenant a sharp glance, then picked up a stone cup from one of his bundles and handed it to Covenant. Covenant knew from the smell that the cup contained diamondraught, potent as oblivion. If he drank from that cup, he might not regain consciousness until the next day. Or the day after that.

Unconsciousness bore no burdens, felt no blame.

He did not drink. He stared into the flames without seeing them, without feeling the clench of grief on his features. He did nothing but listen to the sounds of the night: the lurker bubbling pain softly to itself; Pitchwife's faint stertorous breathing; Linden's gagged scream as Cail started to pull at her foot. Her bones made a noise like the breaking of sodden sticks as they shifted against each other.

Then the First said tightly, “It is done.”

The fire cast streaks of orange and yellow through Covenant's tears. He did not want ever to be able to see again, wished himself forever deaf and numb. But he turned to Pitchwife and lifted the stone cup toward the Giant. “Here. She needs this.”

Pitchwife carried the cup to Linden. Covenant followed like a dry leaf in his wake.

Before Covenant reached her, he was met by Brinn and Cail. They blocked his way; but they spoke deferentially. “Ur-Lord.” Brinn's alien inflection expressed the difficulty of apologizing. “It was necessary to deny you. No disservice was intended.”

Covenant fought the tightness of his throat. “I met Bannor in Andelain. He said, 'Redeem my people. Their plight is an abomination. And they will serve you well.'”

But no words were adequate to articulate what he meant. He fumbled past the Haruchai, went to kneel at Linden's side.

She was just emptying the cup which the First held for her. The skin of her face looked as bloodless as marble; a patina of pain clouded her gaze. But her respiration was growing steadier, and the clench of her muscles had begun to loosen. With numb fingers, he rubbed the tears from his eyes, trying to see her clearly, trying to believe that she would be all right.

The First looked at him. Quietly, she said, “Trust the diamondraught. She will be healed.”

He groped for his voice. “She needs bandages. A splint. That wound should be cleaned.”

“It will be done.” The quaver of stress in Hollian's tone told him that she needed to help. “Sunder and I-”

He nodded mutely, remaining at Linden's side while the Stonedownors went to heat water and prepare bandages and splints. She seemed untouchable in her weakness. He knelt with his arms braced on the ground and watched the diamondraught carry her to sleep.

He also watched the care with which Hollian, Sunder, and Stell washed and bandaged Linden's ankle, then splinted her leg securely. But at the same time, a curious bifurcation came over him-a split like the widening gulf between his uselessness and his power. He was sure now-though he feared to admit it to himself-that he had healed himself with wild magic when he had been summoned to Kevin's Watch with the knife-wound still pouring blood from his chest. He remembered his revulsion at Lord Foul's refrain, You are mine, remembered heat and white flame -

Then why could he not do the same for Linden, knit her bones just as he had sealed his own flesh? For the same reason that he could not draw water from the Earth or oppose the Sunbane. Because his senses were too numb for the work, unattuned to the spirit within the physical needs around him. Clearly, this was deliberate, a crucial part of the Despiser's intent. Clearly, Lord Foul sought at every turn to increase both Covenant's might and his helplessness, stretch him on the rack of self-contradiction and doubt. But why? What purpose did it serve?

He had no answer. He had invested too much hope in Linden, in her capacity for healing. And Lord Foul had chosen her on precisely the same grounds. It was too much. Covenant could not think. He felt weak and abject of soul. For a moment, he listened to the misery of the lurker. Then, numbly, he left Linden's side and returned to the campfire, seeking warmth for his chilled bones.

Sunder and Hollian joined him. They held each other as if they, too, felt the cold of his plight. After a few moments, Harn and Hergrom brought food and water. Covenant and the Stonedownors ate like the survivors of a shipwreck.

Covenant's dullness grew in spite of the meal. His head felt as heavy as prostration; his heart lay under a great weight. He hardly noticed that the First of the Search had come to speak with Honninscrave. He stood, leaning toward the flames like a man contemplating his own dissolution. When Honninscrave addressed him, veils of fatigue obscured the Giant's words.

“The First has spoken,” Honninscrave said. “We must depart. The lurker yet lives. And the skest do not retreat. We must depart while they are thus thinly scattered and may be combated. Should the lurker renew its assault now, all your power — and all the Chosen's pain — will have gained us naught.”

Depart, Covenant mumbled. Now. The importance of the words was hidden. His brain felt like a tombstone.

“You speak truly,” Brinn replied for Covenant. “It would be a gladness to travel with Giants, as the old tellers say Haruchai and Giants travelled together in the ancient days. But perhaps our paths do not lie with each other. Where do you go?”

The First and Honninscrave looked at Seadreamer. Seadreamer closed his eyes as if to ignore them; but with one long arm he pointed toward the west.

Brinn spoke as if he were immune to disappointment. “Then we must part. Our way is eastward, and it is urgent.”

Part? A pang penetrated Covenant's stupor. He wanted the company of the Giants. He had a world of things to tell them. And they were important to him in another way as well, a way he could not seem to articulate. He shook his head. “No.”

Honninscrave cocked an eyebrow. The First frowned at Covenant.

“We just met,” Covenant murmured. But that was not what he had to say. He groped for clarity. “Why west?” Those words disentangled some of his illucidity. “Why are you here?”

“Giantfriend,” the First responded with a hint of iron, “that tale is long, and the time is perilous. This lurker is a jeopardy too vast to be disdained.”

Covenant knotted his fists and tried to insist. “Tell me.”

“Thomas Covenant-” Honninscrave began in a tone of gentle dissuasion.

“I beat that thing once,” Covenant croaked. “I'll beat it again if I have to.” Don't you understand? All your people were killed. “Tell me why you're here.”

The First considered her companions. Honninscrave shrugged. Seadreamer kept his eyes closed, communing with a private pain. Pitchwife hid his face behind a cup of diamondraught.

Stiffly, she said, “Speak briefly, Grimmand Honninscrave.”

Honninscrave bowed, recognizing her right to command him. Then he turned to Covenant. His body took on a formal stance, as if even his muscles and sinews believed that tales were things which should be treated with respect. His resemblance to Foamfollower struck Covenant acutely.

“Hear, then, Thomas Covenant,” Honninscrave said with a cadence in his deep voice, "that we are the leaders of the Search-the Search of the Giants, so called for the purpose which has brought us thus far across the world from our Home. To our people, from time to time among the generations, there is born one possessed of a gift which we name the Earth-Sight- a gift of vision such as only the Elohim comprehend. This gift is strange surpassingly, and may be neither foretold nor bound, but only obeyed. Many are the stories I would wish to tell, so that you might grasp the import of what I say. But I must content myself with this one word: the Earth-Sight has become a command to all Giants, which none would willingly shirk or defy. Therefore we are here.

"Among our generation, a Giant was born, brother of my bone and blood, and the Earth-Sight was in him. He is Cable Seadreamer, named for the vision which binds him, and he is voiceless, scalded mute by the extravagance and horror of what the Earth-Sight has seen. With the eyes of the gift, he beheld a wound upon the Earth, sore and terrible-a wound like a great nest of maggots, feeding upon the flesh of the world's heart. And he perceived that this wound, if left uncleansed, unhealed, would grow to consume all life and tune, devouring the foundation and cornerstone of the Earth, unbinding Stone and Sea from themselves, birthing chaos.

“Therefore a Giantclave was held, and the Search given its duty. We are commanded to seek out this wound and oppose it, in defence of the Earth. For that reason, we set sail from our Home in the proudest dromond of all Giantships, Starfare's Gem. For that reason, we have followed Seadreamer's gaze across the wide oceans of the world-we, and twoscore of our people, who tend the Gem. And for that reason, we are here. The wound lies in this land, in the west. We seek to behold it, discover its nature, so that we may summon the Search to resist or cleanse it.”

Honninscrave stopped and stood waiting for Covenant's reply. The other Giants studied the Unbeliever as if he held the key to a mystery, the First grimly, Seadreamer as intensely as an oracle, Pitchwife with a gaze like a chuckle of laughter or loss. Possibilities widened the faces of the Stonedownors as they began to understand why Covenant had insisted on hearing the explanation of the Giants. But Covenant was silent. He saw the possibilities, too; Honninscrave's narration had opened a small clear space in his mind, and in that space lay answers. But he was preoccupied with an old grief. Foamfollower's people had died because they were unable to find their way Home.

“Ur-Lord,” Brinn said. “Time demands us. We must depart.”

Depart. Covenant nodded. Yes. Give me strength. He swallowed, asked thickly, “Where's your ship?”

“The dromond Starfare's Gem,” Honninscrave replied as if he desired Covenant to use the ship's title, “stands anchored off the delta of a great swamp which lies in the east. A distance of perhaps seven score leagues.”

Covenant closed his eyes. “Take me there. I need your ship.”

The First's breath hissed through her teeth. Pitchwife gaped at the ur-Lord's audacity. After a moment, Honninscrave began hesitantly, “The First has named you Giantfriend. We desire to aid you. But we cannot-”

“Thomas Covenant,” the First said in a voice like a broadsword, “what is your purpose?”

“Oh, forsooth!” Pitchwife laughed. “Let this lurker await our good readiness. We will not be hastened.” His words could have been sarcastic; but he spoke them in a tone of clean glee. “Are we not Giants? Are not tales more precious to us than life?”

Quietly, almost gently, the First said, “Peace, Pitchwife.”

At her command, Pitchwife stopped; but his grin went on contradicting the grief of the lurker.

In the core of his numbness, Covenant held to the few things he understood, kept his eyes shut so that he would not be distracted. Distanced from himself by darkness and concentration, he hardly heard what he was saying.

“I know that wound. I know what it is. I think I know what to do about it. That's why we're here. I need you-your ship, your knowledge-your help.”

The thing you seek is not within the Land.

The Staff of Law. The One Tree.

Yet Mhoram had also said, Do not be deceived by the Land's need. The thing you seek is not what it appears to be.

Carefully, Honninscrave said, “Cable Seadreamer asks that you speak more plainly.”

More plainly? For an instant, Covenant's grasp on clarity faltered. Do I have to tell you that it's my fault? That I'm the one who opened the door? But he steadied himself in the eye of all the things he did not understand and began to speak.

There in the night, with his eyes closed against the firelight and the immaculate stars, he described the Sunbane and the purpose for which Lord Foul had created the Sunbane. He outlined its origin in the destruction of the Staff of Law, then told of his own role in that destruction, so that the Giants would understand why the restitution of the Staff was his responsibility. And he talked about what he had learned in Andelain. All these things ran together in his mind; he did not know whether the words he spoke aloud made any sense.

When he finished, he fell silent and waited.

After a time, the First said thoughtfully, “You ask the use of Starfare's Gem so that you may seek across the world for this One Tree. You ask our aid and our knowledge of the Earth, to aid your seeking.”

Covenant opened his eyes then, let his mortal weariness speak for him. Yes. Look at me. How else can any of this be healed?

“Stone and Sea!” she muttered, “this is a hard matter. If you speak truly, then the path of the Search lies with you.”

“The ur-Lord,” Brinn said without inflection, “speaks truly.”

She rejected his assertion with a brusque shrug. “I doubt not that he speaks truly concerning his own belief. But is his belief a sure knowledge? He asks us to place all the Search into his hands-without any secure vision of what we do. Granted, he is mighty, and has known the friendship of Giants. But might and surety are not children of the same parent.”

“Do you”- Covenant could feel himself failing into stupidity again, becoming desperate — “know where the One Tree is?”

“No,” she replied stiffly. She hesitated for only a moment. “But we know where such knowledge may be gained.”

“Then take me there.” His voice was husky with supplication. "The Sunbane's getting worse. People are killed every day to feed it. The Land is dying,“ I swore I'd never kill again-swore it in the name of FoamfoIIower's caamora. But I can't stop. ”Please."

Indecision held the First. She glared at the dilemma he had given her. Honninscrave knelt by the fire, tending it as if he needed something to do with his hands. Seadreamer's face wore pain as if he were maimed by his muteness. Near him, Sunder and Hollian waited in suspense.

Whistling thinly through his teeth, Pitchwife began to repack the Giants' bundles. His features expressed a complete confidence that the First would make the right choice.

Without warning, a bolt of white shot through the depths of the lake. It flickered, disappeared. Fired again.

Instantly, the whole lake caught silver. Ghost-shine sprang into the night. The water came to life.

In the distance, the lurker's sobbing mounted toward rage. At once, the air seemed to congeal like fear.

Sunder spat a hoarse curse. Harn and Hergrom dove toward the quest's supplies. Pitchwife tossed a bundle to Honninscrave. Honninscrave caught it, slipped his shoulders into the bindings. The First had already kicked the campfire apart. She and Honninscrave picked up brands to use as torches. Pitchwife threw the other bundle to Seadreamer, then snatched up a torch himself.

Ceer and Cail had lifted Linden. But the splint made her awkward for them. Covenant saw dazedly that they would not be able to carry her, run with her, without hurting her ankle.

He did not know what to do. His lungs ached. The lurker's rising howl tore open the scars of past attacks. Sweat burst from the bones of his skull. The skest were moving, tightening their fire around the company. There was nothing he could do.

Then Seadreamer reached Cail and Ceer. The Giant took Linden from them; his huge arms supported her as securely as a litter.

The sight unlocked Covenant's paralysis. He trusted the Giant instinctively. The company began to climb the hillside northward. He left them, turned to confront the water.

Just try it! His fists jerked threats at the fell lustre and the howl. Come on! Try to hurt us again!

Brinn yanked him away from the lakeshore and dragged him stumbling up the hill.

Reeling with exertion and anoxia, he fought to keep his feet. Dark trees leaped across his vision like aghast dancers in the nacreous light. He tripped repeatedly. But Brinn upheld him.

The lurker's cry whetted itself on pain and frustration, shrilled into his ears. At the fringes of his sight, he could see the skest. They moved in pursuit, as if the lurker's fury were a scourge at their backs.

Then Brinn impelled him over the crest of the hill.

At once, the ghost-light was cut off. Torches bounded into the jungle ahead of him. He struggled after them as if he were chasing swamp-fires. Only Brinn's support saved him from slamming into trunks, thick brush, vines as heavy as hawsers.

The howling scaled toward a shriek, then dropped to a lower, more cunning pitch. But the sound continued to impale Covenant like a swordthorn. He retched for air; the night became vertigo. He did not know where he was going.

A lurid, green blur appeared beyond the torches. The skest angled closer on the left, forcing the company to veer to the right.

More skest.

The flight of the torches swung farther to the right.

Lacking air, strength, courage, Covenant could hardly bear his own weight. His limbs yearned to fall, his chest ached for oblivion. But Hergrom gripped his other arm. Stumbling between Haruchai, he followed his companions.

For long moments, they splashed down the length of a cold stream which ran like an aisle between advancing hordes of skest. But then the stream faded into quicksand. The company lost time hunting for solid ground around the quagmire.

They gained a reach of clear dirt, soil so dead that even marsh-grass could not grow there. They began to sprint. Bruin and Hergrom drew Covenant along more swiftly than he could move.

Suddenly, the whole group crashed to a halt, as if they had blundered against an invisible wall.

The First hissed an oath like a sword-cut. Sunder and Hollian sobbed for air. Pitchwife hugged his crippled chest. Honninscrave swung in circles, scanning the night. Seadreamer stood like a tree with Linden asleep in his arms and stared into the darkness as if he had lost his sight.

With his own breath rending like an internal wound, Covenant jerked forward to see why the company had stopped.

Herded! Bloody hell.

The dead ground stretched like a peninsula out into a region of mud: mire blocked the way for more than a stone's throw on three sides. The muck stank like a charnel, seething faintly, as if corpses writhed in its depths. It looked thick enough to swallow even Giants without a trace.

Already, skest had begun to mass at the head of the peninsula, sealing the company in the lurker's trap. Hundreds of skest, scores of hundreds. They made the whole night green, pulsing like worship. Even armed with a mountain of wood, no Giant or Haruchai could have fought through that throng; and the company had no wood left except the torches.

Covenant's respiration became febrile with cursing.

He looked at his companions. Emerald etched them out of the darkness, as distinct as the accursed. Linden lay panting in Seadreamer's arms as if her sleep were troubled by nightmares. Hollian's face was bloodless under her black hair, pale as prophecy. Sunder's whole visage clenched around the grinding of his teeth. Their vulnerability wrung Covenant's heart. The Haruchai and the Giants could at least give some account of themselves before they fell. What could Linden, Sunder, and Hollian do except die?

“Ur-Lord.” Brinn's singed hair and dispassion looked ghastly in the green light. “The white ring. May these skest be driven back?”

Thousands of them? Covenant wanted to demand. I don't have the strength. But his chest could not force out words.

One of Honninscrave's torches burned down to his hand. With a grimace, he tossed the sputtering wood into the mire.

Instantly, the surface of the mud lake caught fire.

Flames capered across the mire like souls in torment. Heat like a foretaste of hell blasted against the company, drove them into a tight cluster in the centre of the peninsula.

The First discarded her torches, whipped out her sword, and tried to shout something. The lurker drowned her voice. But the Giants understood. They placed themselves around their companions, using their bodies as shields against the heat. The First, Honninscrave, and Pitchwife faced outward; Seadreamer put his back to the fire, protecting Linden.

The next instant, a concussion shook the ground. Pitchwife stumbled. Hollian, Sunder, and Covenant fell.

As Covenant climbed back to his feet, he saw a tremendous spout of flame mounting out of the mud.

It rose like a fire-storm and whirled toward the heavens. Its fury tore a gale through the night. Towering over the peninsula, it leaned to hammer the company. The howl of the lurker became a gyre of conflagration.

No!

Covenant eluded Brinn's grasp, wrenched past Honninscrave. He forged out into the heat to meet the firespout.

Baring the krill, he raised it so that its gem shone clear. Purest argent pierced the orange mudfire, defying it as hotly as lightning.

In the silence of his clogged lungs, Covenant raged words he did not understand. Words of power.

Melenkurion abatha! Duroc minus mill khakaal!

Immediately, the firespout ruptured. In broken gouts and fear, it crashed backward as if he had cut off another arm of the lurker. Flames skirted like frustrated ire across the mud. Abruptly, the air was free. Wind empty of howling fed the fire. Covenant's companions coughed and gasped as if they had been rescued from the hands of a strangler.

He knelt on the dead ground. Peals of light rang in his head, tintinnabulating victory or defeat; either one, there was no difference; triumph and desecration were the same thing. He was foundering-

But hands came to succour him. They were steady and gentle. They draped cloth over the krill, took it from his power-cramped fingers. Relative darkness poured through his eye-sockets as if they were empty pits, gaping for night. The dark spoke in Brinn's voice. “The lurker has been pained. It fears to be pained again.”

“Sooth,” the First muttered starkly. “Therefore it has given our deaths into the hands of its acolytes.”

Brinn helped Covenant to his feet. Blinking at numberless krill echoes, he fought to see. But the afterflares were too bright. He was still watching them turn to emerald when he heard Hollian's gasp. The Giants and Haruchai went rigid. Brinn's fingers dug reflexively into Covenant's arm.

By degrees, the white spots became orange and green-mudfire and skest. The acid-creatures thronged at the head of the peninsula, shimmering like religious ecstasy. They oozed forward slowly, not as if they were frightened, but rather as if they sought to prolong the anticipation of their advance.

Covenant's companions stared in the direction of the skest. But not at the skest.

Untouched amid the green forms, as if he were impervious to every conceivable vitriol, stood Vain.

His posture was one of relaxation and poise; his arms hung, slightly bent, at his sides. But at intervals he took a step, two steps, drew gradually closer to the leading edge of the skest. They broke against his legs and had no effect.

His gaze was unmistakably fixed on Linden.

In a flash of memory, Covenant saw Vain snatch Linden into his arms, leap down into a sea of graveling. The Demondim-spawn had returned from quicksand and loss to rescue her.

“Who-?” the First began.

“He is Vain,” Brinn replied, “given to ur-Lord Thomas Covenant by the Giant Saltheart Foamfollower among the Dead in Andelain.”

She cleared her throat, searching for a question which would produce a more useful answer. But before she could speak, Covenant heard a soft popping noise like the bursting of a bubble of mud.

At once, Vain came to a halt. His gaze flicked past the company, then faded into disfocus.

Covenant turned in time to see a short figure detach itself from the burning mud, step queasily onto the hard ground.

The figure was scarcely taller than the skest, and shaped like them, a misborn child without eyes or any other features. But it was made of mud. Flames flickered over it as it climbed from the fire, then died away, leaving a dull brown creature like a sculpture poorly wrought in clay. Reddish pockets embedded in its form glowed dully.

Paralyzed by recognition, Covenant watched as a second clay form emerged like a damp sponge from the mud. It looked like a crocodile fashioned by a blind man.

The two halted on the bank and faced the company. From somewhere within themselves, they produced modulated squishing noises which sounded eerily like language. Mud talking.

The First and Pitchwife stared, she sternly, he with a light like hilarity in his eyes. But Honninscrave stepped forward and bowed formally. With his lips, he made sounds which approximated those of the clay forms.

In a whisper, Pitchwife informed his companions, “They name themselves the sur-jheherrin. They ask if we desire aid against the skest. Honninscrave replies that our need is absolute.” The clay creatures spoke again. A look of puzzlement crossed Pitchwife's face. “The sur-jheherrin say that we will be redeemed. 'In the name of the Pure One,'” he added, then shrugged. “I do not comprehend it.”

The jheherrin. Covenant staggered inwardly as memories struck him like blows. Oh dear God.

The soft ones. They had lived in the caves and mud pits skirting Foul's Creche. They had been the Despiser's failures, the rejected mischances of his breeding dens. He had let them live because the torment of their craven lives amused him.

But he had misjudged them. In spite of their ingrown terror, they had rescued Covenant and Foamfollower from Lord Foul's minions, had taught Covenant and Foamfollower the secrets of Foul's Creche, enabling them to reach the thronehall and confront the Despiser. In the name of the Pure One-

The sur-jheherrin were clearly descendants of the soft ones. They had been freed from thrall, as their old legend had foretold. But not by Covenant, though he had wielded the power. His mind burned with remembrance; he could hear himself saying, because he had had no choice, Look at me. I'm not pure. I'm corrupt. The word jheherrin meant “the corrupt.” His reply had stricken the clay creatures with despair. And still they had aided him.

But Foamfollower — The Pure One. Burned clean by the caamora of Hotash Slay, he had cast down the Despiser, broken the doom of the jheherrin.

And now their inheritors lived in the mud and mire of Sarangrave Flat. Covenant clung to the sur-jheherrin with his eyes as if they were an act of grace, the fruit of Foamfollower's great clean heart, which they still treasured across centuries that had corroded all human memories of the Land.

The acid-creatures continued to advance, oblivious to Vain and the sur-jheherrin. The first skest were no more than five paces away, radiating dire emerald. Hergrom, Ceer, and Ham stood poised to sacrifice themselves as expensively as possible, though they must have known that even Haruchai were futile against so much green vitriol. Their expressionlessness appeared demonic in that light.

The two sur-jheherrin speaking with Honninscrave did not move. Yet they fulfilled their offer of aid. Without warning, the muck edging the peninsula began to seethe. Mud rose like a wave leaping shoreward, then resolved into separate forms. Sur-jheherrin like stunted apes, misrecollected reptiles, inept dogs. Scores of them came wetly forward, trailing fires which quickly died on their backs. They surged with surprising speed past the Haruchai. And more of them followed. Out of mud lit garishly by the lurker's fire, they arose to defend the company.

The forces met, vitriol and clay pouring bluntly into contact. There was no fighting, no impact of strength or skill. Skest and sur-jheherrin pitted their essential natures against each other. The skest were created to spill green flame over whatever opposed them. But the clay forms absorbed acid and fire. Each sur-jheherrin embraced one of the skest, drew the acid-creature into itself. For an instant, emerald glazed the mud. Then the green was quenched, and the sur-jheherrin moved to another skest.

Covenant watched the contest distantly. To his conflicted passions, the battle seemed to have no meaning apart from the sur-jheherrin themselves. While his eyes followed the struggle, his ears clinched every word of the dialogue between Honninscrave and the first mud-forms. Honninscrave went on questioning them as if he feared that the outcome of the combat was uncertain, and the survival of the Search might come to depend on what he could learn.

“Honninscrave asks”- Pitchwife continued to translate across the mute conflict — “if so many skest may be defeated. The sur-jheherrin reply that they are greatly outnumbered. But in the name of the Pure One, they undertake to clear our way from this trap and to aid our flight from the Sarangrave.”

More clay forms climbed from the mud to join the struggle. They were needed. The sur-jheherrin were not able to absorb skest without cost. As each creature took in more acid, the green burning within it became stronger, and its clay began to lose shape. Already, the leaders were melting like heated wax. With the last of their solidity, they oozed out of the combat and ran down the sides of the peninsula back into the mud.

“Honninscrave asks if the sur-jheherrin who depart are mortally harmed. They reply that their suffering is not fatal. As the acid dissipates, their people will be restored.”

Each of the clay forms consumed several of the skest before being forced to retreat. Slowly, the assault was eaten back, clearing the ground. And more sur-jheherrin continued to rise from the mud, replacing those which fled.

Another part of Covenant knew that his arms were clamped over his stomach, that he was rocking himself from side to side, like a sore child. Everything was too vivid. Past and present collided in him: Foamfollower's agony in Hotash Slay; the despair of the soft ones; innocent men and women slaughtered; Linden helpless in Seadreamer's arms; fragments of insanity.

Yet he could hear Pitchwife's murmur as distinctly as a bare nerve. “Honninscrave asks how the sur-jheherrin are able to survive so intimately with the lurker. They reply that they are creatures of mire, at home in quicksand and bog and claybank, and the lurker cannot see them.”

Absorbing their way forward, the sur-jheherrin reached Vain, shoved past his thighs. The Demondim-spawn did not glance at them. He remained still, as if time meant nothing to him. The clay forms were halfway to the head of the peninsula.

“Honninscrave asks if the sur-jheherrin know this man whom you name Vain. He asks if they were brought to our aid by Vain. They reply that they do not know him. He entered their clay pits to the west, and began journeying at once in this direction, traversing their demesne as if he knew all its ways. Therefore they followed him, seeking an answer to his mystery.” Again, Pitchwife seemed puzzled. “Thus he brought them by apparent chance to an awareness that the people of the Pure One were present in Sarangrave Flat-and imperilled. At once, they discarded the question of this Vain and set themselves to answer their ancient debt.”

Back-lit by emeralds, orange mudfire in his face, Vain gazed enigmatically through the company revealing nothing.

Behind him, the skest began to falter. Some sense of peril seemed to penetrate their dim minds; instead of oozing continuously toward absorption, they started to retreat. The sur-jheherrin advanced more quickly.

Honninscrave made noises with his lips. Pitchwife murmured, “Honninscrave asks the sur-jheherrin to speak to him of this Pure One, whom he does not know.”

“No,” the First commanded over her shoulder. "Inquire into such matters at another time. Our way clears before us. The sur-jheherrin have offered to aid us from this place. We must choose our path.“ She faced Covenant dourly, as if he had given her a dilemma she did not like. ”It is my word that the duty of the Search lies westward. What is your reply?"

Seadreamer stood at her side, bearing Linden lightly. His countenance wore a suspense more personal than any mere question of west or east.

Covenant hugged his chest, unable to stop rocking. “No.” His mind was a jumble of shards like a broken stoneware pot, each as sharp-edged and vivid as blame, “You're wrong.” The Stonedownors stared at him; but he could not read their faces. He hardly knew who he was. “You need to know about the Pure One.”

The First's eyes sharpened. “Thomas Covenant,” she rasped, “do not taunt me. The survival and purpose of the Search are in my hands. I must choose swiftly.”

“Then choose.” Suddenly, Covenant's hands became fists, jerking blows at the invulnerable air. “Choose, and be ignorant.” His weakness hurt his throat. “I'm talking about a Giant.”

The First winced, as if he had unexpectedly struck her to the heart. She hesitated, glancing past the company to gauge the progress of the sur-jheherrin. The head of the peninsula would be clear in moments. To Covenant, she said sternly, “Very well, Giantfriend. Speak to me of this Pure One.”

Giantfriend! Covenant ached. He wanted to hide his face in grief; but the passion of his memories could not be silenced.

“Saltheart Foamfollower. A Giant. The last of the Giants who lived in the Land. They'd lost their way Home.” Foamfollower's visage shone in front of him. It was Honninscrave's face. All his Dead were coming back to him. "Every other hope was gone. Foul had the Land in his hands, to crush it. There was nothing left. Except me. And Foamfollower.

“He helped me. He took me to Foul's Creche, so that I could at least fight, at least make that much restitution, die if I had to. He was burned-” Shuddering, he fought to keep his tale in order. "Before we got there, Foul trapped us. We would have been killed. But the jheherrin- his ancestors-They rescued us. In the name of the Pure One.

“That was their legend-the hope that kept them sane. They believed that someday somebody pure-somebody who didn't have Foul's hands clenched in his soul-would come and free them. If they were worthy. Worthy! They were so tormented. There wasn't enough weeping in all the world to describe their worth. And I couldn't-” He choked on his old rage for victims, the preterite and the dispossessed. “I had power, but I wasn't pure. I was so full of disease and violence-” His hands groped the air, came back empty. “And they still helped us. They thought they had nothing to live for, and they helped-”

His vision of their courage held him silent for a moment. But his friends were waiting; the First was waiting. The sur-jheherrin had begun to move off the peninsula, absorbing skest. He drove himself to continue.

“But they couldn't tell us how to get across Hotash Slay. It was lava. We didn't have any way to get across. Foamfollower-” The Giant had shouted, 'I am the last of the Giants. I will give my life as I choose.' Covenant's memory of that cry would never be healed. “Foamfollower carried me. He just walked the lava until it sucked him down. Then he threw me to the other side.” His grief resounded in him like a threat of wild magic, unaneled power. “I thought he was dead.”

His eyes burned with recollections of magma. “But he wasn't dead. He came back. I couldn't do it alone, couldn't even get into Foul's Creche, never mind find the thronehall, save the Land. He came back to help me. Purified. All his hurts seared, all his hate and lust for killing and contempt for himself gone. He gave me what I needed when I didn't have anything left, gave me joy and laughter and courage. So that I could finish what I had to do without committing another Desecration. Even though it killed him.”

Oh, Foamfollower!

“He was the Pure One. The one who freed the jheherrin. Freed the Land. By laughing. A Giant.”

He glared at the company. In the isolation of what he remembered, he was prepared to fight them all for the respect Foamfollower deserved. But his unquenched passion had nowhere to go. Tears reflected orange and green from Honninscrave's cheeks. Pitchwife's mien was a clench of sorrow. The First swallowed thickly, fighting for sternness. When she spoke, her words were stiff with the strain of self-mastery,

“I must hear more of the Giants you have known. Thomas Covenant, we will accompany you from this place.”

A spasm of personal misery knotted Seadreamer's face. The scar under his eyes ached like a protest; but he had no voice.

In silence, Brinn took Covenant's arm and drew him away toward the end of the peninsula. The company followed. Ahead, the sur-jheherrin had consumed a passage through the skest. Bruin moved swiftly, pulling Covenant at a half-run toward the free night.

When they had passed the skest, the Haruchai turned eastward.

As the company fled, a screech of rage shivered the darkness, rang savagely across the Sarangrave. But in front of Covenant and Brinn, sur-jheherrin appeared, glowing orange and red.

Guided by clay forms, the company began to run.

Twenty Six: Coercri

FIVE days later, they reached the verge of Sarangrave Flat and broke out of jungle and wetland into the late afternoon of a cloudless sky. The sur-jheherrin were unexpectedly swift, and their knowledge of the Flat was intimate; they set a pace Covenant could not have matched. And Sunder and Hollian were in little better condition. Left to their own strength, they would have moved more slowly. Perhaps they would have died.

So for a large portion of each day, the Giants carried them. Seadreamer still bore Linden supine in his arms to protect her leg; but Sunder sat against the First's back, using her shield as a sling; Hollian straddled Pitchwife's hunched shoulders; and Covenant rode in the crook of Honninscrave's elbow. No one protested this arrangement. Covenant was too weary to feel any shame at his need for help. And peril prevented every other form of pride.

At intervals throughout those five days, the air became turgid screams, afflicting the company with an atavistic dread for which there was no anodyne except flight. Four times, they were threatened. Twice, hordes of skest appeared out of dark streams and tar-pits; twice, the lurker itself attacked. But, aided by the sur-jheherrin and by plentiful supplies of green wood, the Haruchai and the Giants were able to repulse the skest. And Covenant opposed the lurker with the light of the krill, lashing white fire from the unveiled gem until the lurker quailed and fled, yowling insanely.

When he had the chance, during times of rest or less frenetic travel, Honninscrave asked the sur-jheherrin more questions, gleaning knowledge of them. Their story was a terse one, but it delineated clearly enough the outlines of the past.

For a time which must have been measured in centuries after the fall of Foul's Creche, the jheherrin had huddled fearfully in their homes, not daring to trust their redemption, trust that they had been found worthy. But at last they had received proof strong enough for their timorous hearts. Freed from the Despiser's power and from the corruptive might of the Illearth Stone, the jheherrin had regained the capacity to bring forth children. That was redemption, indeed. Their children they named the sur-jheherrin, to mark their new freedom. In the age which followed, the soft ones began the long migration which took them from the place of their former horror.

From cave to mud pit, quagmire to swamp, underground spring to riverbed, they moved northward across the years, seeking terrain in which they could flourish. And they found what they needed in the Sarangrave. For them, it was a place of safety: their clay flesh and mobility, their ability to live in the bottoms of quicksands and streams, suited them perfectly to the Flat. And in safety they healed their old terror, became creatures who could face pain and risk, if need arose.

Thus their gratitude toward the Pure One grew rather than diminished through the generations. When they saw Giants in peril, their decision of aid was made without hesitation for all the sur-jheherrin throughout the Sarangrave.

And with that aid, the company finally reached the narrow strip of open heath which lay between the time-swollen Sarangrave and the boundary hills of Seareach. The quest was in grim flight from the most desperate assault of the skest. But suddenly the trees parted, unfurling the cerulean sky like a reprieve overhead. The smell of bracken replaced the dank stenches and fears of the Flat. Ahead, the grass-mantled hills rose like the battlements of a protected place.

The Giants ran a short distance across the heath like Ranyhyn tasting freedom, then wheeled to look behind them.

The skest had vanished. The air was still, unappalled by lust or rage, empty of any sound except bird calls and breeze. Even the solidity of the ground underfoot was a surcease from trepidation.

The sur-jheherrin, too, melted back into the Flat as if to avoid thanks. At once, Covenant shrugged himself from Honninscrave's arm and returned to the edges of the jungle, trying to find the words he wanted. But his heart had become a wilderland where few words grew. He could do nothing except stare dumbly through the trees with the sun in his face, thinking like an ache, Foamfollower would be proud.

The First joined him and gazed into the Sarangrave with an unwonted softness in her eyes. Brinn joined him; all his companions joined him, standing like a salute to the unquestionable worth of the sur-jheherrin.

Later, the Haruchai unpacked their supplies and prepared a meal. There between the Sarangrave and Seareach, the company fed and tried to measure the implications of their situation.

Linden sat, alert and awkward, with her back braced against Seadreamer's shin; she needed the support because of the rigid splint on her left leg. She had awakened a day and a half after her injury and had taken pains to assure her companions that her ankle was knitting properly. Diamondraught was a potent healer. But since then, Covenant had had no chance to talk to her. Though Seadreamer carried a constant unhappiness on his face, he tended Linden as if she were a child.

Covenant sorely wanted to speak with her. But for the present, sitting in the bracken with the afternoon sun slanting toward evening across his shoulders, he was preoccupied by other questions. The Giants had brought him this far; but they had not been persuaded to give him the help he needed. And he had promised them the tale of the Unhomed. He could not imagine ever having enough courage to tell it.

Yet he had to say something. Sunder and Hollian had moved away into the dark, seeking a private relief. Covenant understood. After all their other losses, they now had before them a world for which they were not equipped-a world without the Sunbane that made them valuable to their companions. But the Giants sat expectantly around the flames, waiting to hear him argue for their aid. Something he must say. Yet it was not in him.

At last, the First broke the silence. “Giantfriend.” She used the title she had given him gently. “You have known Giants-the people of your friend, Saltheart Foamfollower. We deeply desire to hear their story. We have seen in you that it is not a glad tale. But the Giants say that joy is in the ears that hear, not in the mouth that speaks. We will know how to hear you with joy, though the telling pains you.”

“Joy.” Covenant swallowed the breaking of his voice. Her words seemed to leech away what little fortitude he had left. He knew what the Giants would do when they heard his story. “No. Not yet. I'm not ready.”

From his position behind Covenant, Brinn said, “That tale is known among the old tellers of the Haruchai.” He moved closer to the fire, met the sudden dismay in Covenant's face. “I will tell it, though I have not been taught the skill of stories.” In spite of its dispassion, his gaze showed that he was offering a gift, offering to carry one of Covenant's burdens for him.

But Covenant knew the story too well. The fate of the Bloodguard and their Vow was inextricably bound up with the doom of the Seareach Giants. In his Haruchai honesty, Brinn would certainly reveal parts of the story which Covenant would never choose to tell. Brinn would disclose that Korik's mission to the Unhomed had reached Coercri with Lord Hyrim during the slaughter of the Giants by a Giant-Raver. Three of the Bloodguard had survived, had succeeded in killing the Giant-Raver, had captured a fragment of the Illearth Stone. But the Stone had corrupted them, turning them to the service of Lord Foul. And this corruption had so appalled the Bloodguard that they had broken their Vow, had abandoned the Lords during the Land's gravest peril. Surely Brinn would describe such things as if they were not a great grief to his people, not the reason why group after group of Haruchai had returned to the Land, falling prey to the butchery of the Clave. This Covenant could not bear. The Bloodguard had always judged themselves by standards which no mortal could meet.

“No,” Covenant almost moaned. He faced Brinn, gave the only answer he had. You don't have to do that. It's past. It wasn't their fault. “ 'Corruption wears many faces.'” He was quoting Bannor. “ 'Blame is a more enticing face than others, but it is none the less a mask for the Despiser.'” Do you know that Foul maimed those three Bloodguard? Made them into half-hands? “I'll tell it.” It's on my head. “When I'm ready.” A pang of augury told him that Haruchai were going to die because of him.

Brinn studied him for a moment. Then the Haruchai shrugged fractionally, withdrew to his place guarding Covenant's back. Covenant was left with nothing between him and the intent eyes of the Giants.

“Giantfriend,” the First said slowly, "such tales must be shared to be borne. An untold tale withers the heart. But I do not ask that you ease your heart. I ask for myself. Your tale concerns my kindred. And I am the First of the Search. You have spoken of the Sunbane which so appalls the Earth. My duty lies there. In the west. Seadreamer's Earth-Sight is clear. We must seek out this evil and oppose it. Yet you desire our aid. You ask for our proud dromond Starfare's Gem. You assert that your path is the true path of the Search. And you refuse to speak to us concerning our people.

“Thomas Covenant, I ask for your tale because I must choose. Only in stories may the truth to guide me be found. Lacking the knowledge which moves your heart, I lack means to judge your path and your desires. You must speak.”

Must? In his emotional poverty, he wanted to cry out, You don't know what you're doing! But the Giants regarded him with eyes which asked and probed. Honninscrave wore his resemblance to Foamfollower as if that oblique ancestry became him. Seadreamer's stare seemed rife with Earth-Sight. Empathy complicated Pitchwife's smile. Covenant groaned inwardly.

“These hills-” He gestured eastward, moving his half-hand like a man plucking the only words he could find. “They're the boundary of Seareach. Where the Giants I knew used to live. They had a city on the Sea. Coercri: The Grieve. I want to go there.”

The First did not reply, did not blink.

He clenched his fist and strove to keep himself intact. “That's where they were murdered.”

Honninscrave's eyes flared. Pitchwife drew a hissing breath through his teeth. “In their homes?”

“Yes.”

The First of the Search glared at Covenant. He met her look, saw dismay, doubt, judgment seethe like sea shadows behind her eyes. In spite of his fear, he felt strangely sure that her anger would give him what he wanted.

In a tone of quiet iron, she said, "Honninscrave will return to Starfare's Gem. He will bring the Giantship northward. We will meet at this Coercri. Thus I prepare to answer your desires-if I am persuaded by your tale. And the others of the Search will wish to behold a city of Giants in this lost land.

“Thomas Covenant, I will wait. We will accompany you to the coast of Seareach. But”- her voice warned him like a sword in her hands — “I will hear this tale of murder.”

Covenant nodded. He folded his arms over his knees, buried his face between his elbows; he needed to be alone with his useless rue. You'll hear it. Have mercy on me.

Without a word, Honninscrave began to pack the supplies he would need. Soon he was gone, striding briskly toward the Sea as if his Giantish bones could do without rest forever.

The sound of Honninscrave's departure seemed to stretch out Covenant's exhaustion until it covered everything. He settled himself for sleep as if he hoped that he would never awaken.

But he came out of dreams under the full light of the moon. In the last flames of the campfire, he could see the Giants and the Stonedownors slumbering. Dimly, he made out the poised, dark shapes of the Haruchai. Vain stood at the edge of the light, staring at nothing like an entranced prophet.

A glimpse of orange-red reflecting from Linden's eyes revealed that she also was awake. Covenant left his blankets. His desire for the escape of sleep was strong, but his need to talk to her was stronger. Moving quietly, he went to her side.

She acknowledged him with a nod, but did not speak. As he sat beside her, she went on staring into the embers.

He did not know how to approach her; he was ignorant of any names which might unlock her. Tentatively, he asked, “How's your leg?”

Her whisper came out of the dark, like a voice from another world. “Now I know how Lena must have felt”

Lena? Surprise and shame held him mute. He had told her about that crime when she had not wanted to hear. What did it mean to her now?

“You raped her. But she believed in you and she let you go. It's like that for me.”

She fell silent. He waited for a long moment, then said in a stiff murmur, “Tell me.”

“Almost everything I see is a rape.” She spoke so softly that he had to strain to hear her. "The Sunbane. The Sarangrave. When that Raver touched me, I felt as if I had the Sunbane inside me. I don't know how you live with that venom. Sometimes I can't even stand to look at you. That touch denied everything about me. I've spent half my life fighting to be a doctor. But when I saw Joan, I was so horrified-I couldn't bear it. It made me into a lie. That's why I followed you.

“That Raver-It was like with Joan, but a thousand times worse. Before that, I could at least survive what I was seeing-the Sunbane, what it did to the Land-because I thought it was a disease. But when he touched me, he made everything evil. My whole life. Lena must have felt like that.”

Covenant locked his hands together and waited. After a while, she went on. “But my ankle is healing. I can feel it. When it was broken, I could see inside it, see everything that needed to be done, how to get the bones back into place. I knew when they were set right. And now I can feel them healing. They're fusing just the way they should. The tissues, the blood-vessels and nerves-” She paused as if she could not contain all her emotion in a whisper. “And that diamondraught speeds up the process. I'll be able to walk in a few days.”

She turned to face him squarely. "Lena must have felt like that, too. Or she couldn't have let you get away with it.

“Covenant.” Her tone pleaded for his understanding. “I need to heal things. I need it. That's why I became a doctor, and why I can't stand all this evil. It isn't something I can heal. I can't cure souls. I can't cure myself.”

He wanted to understand, yearned to comprehend her. Her eyes reflected the embers of the fire like echoes of supplication. But he had so little knowledge of who she was, how she had come to be such a person. Yet the surface of her need was plain enough. With an effort, he swallowed his uncertainty, his fear. “The One Tree,” he breathed. “We'll find it. The Giants know whom to ask to find out where it is. We'll make a Staff of Law. You'll be able to go home. Somehow.”

She looked away, as if this were not the answer she desired. But when she spoke, she asked, “Do you think they're going to help us? Seadreamer doesn't want to. I can see it. His Earth-Sight is like what I feel. But it's with him all the time. Distance doesn't make any difference. The Sunbane eats at him all the time. He wants to face it. Fight it. End what's happening to him. And the First trusts him. Do you think you can convince her?”

“Yes.” What else could he offer her? He made promises he did not know how to keep because he had nothing else to give. “She isn't going to like it. But I'll find a way.”

She nodded as if to herself. For a while she was still, musing privately over the coals like a woman who needed courage and only knew how to look for it alone. Then she said, “I can't go back to the Sunbane.” Her whisper was barely audible. “I can't.”

Hearing her, Covenant wanted to say, You won't have to. But that was a promise he feared to make. In Andelain, Mhoram had said, The thing you seek is not what it appears to be. In the end, you must return to the Land. Not what it appears-? Not the One Tree? The Staff of Law?

That thought took him from Linden's side; he could not face it. He went like a craven back to his blankets and lay there hugging his apprehension until his weariness pulled him back to sleep.

The next morning, while the sunrise was still hidden, lambent and alluring behind the hills, the company climbed into Seareach.

They ascended the slope briskly, in spite of Covenant's grogginess, and stood gazing out into the dawn and the wide region which had once been Saltheart Foamfollower's home. The crisp breeze chilled their faces; and in the taintless light, they saw that autumn had come to the fair land of Seareach. Below them, woods nestled within the curve of the hills: oak, maple, and sycamore anademed in fall-change; Gilden gloriously bedecked. And beyond the woods lay rolling grasslands as luxuriously green as the last glow of summer.

Seeing Seareach for the first time-seeing health and beauty for the first time since he had left Andelain-Covenant felt strangely dry and detached. Essential parts of him were becoming numb. His ring hung heavily on his half-hand, as if, when his two fingers had been amputated, he had also lost his answer to self-doubt. Back at Revelstone, innocent men and women were being slain to feed the Sunbane. While that crime continued, no health in all the world could make a difference to him.

Yet he was vaguely surprised that Sunder and Hollian did not appear pleased by what they saw. They gazed at the autumn as if it were Andelain-a siren-song, seductive and false, concealing madness. They had been taught to feel threatened by the natural loveliness of the Earth. They did not know who they were in such a place. With the Sunbane, Lord Foul had accomplished more than the corruption of nature. He had dispossessed people like the Stonedownors from the simple human capacity to be moved by beauty. Once again, Covenant was forced to think of them as lepers.

But the others were keenly gladdened by the view. Appreciation softened the First's stern countenance; Pitchwife chuckled gently under his breath, as if he could not contain his happiness; Seadreamer's misery melted somewhat, allowing him to smile. The Haruchai stiffened slightly, as if in their thoughts they stood to attention out of respect for the fealty and sorrow which had once inhabited Seareach. And Linden gazed into the sunrise as if the autumn offered her palliation for her personal distress. Only Vain showed no reaction. The Demondim-spawn seemed to care for nothing under any sun.

At last, the First broke the silence. “Let us be on our way. My heart has conceived a desire to behold this city which Giants have named The Grieve.”

Pitchwife let out a laugh like the cry of a kestrel, strangely lorn and glad. With a lumbering stride, he set off into the morning. Ceer and Hergrom followed. The First also followed. Seadreamer moved like the shifting of a colossus, stiff and stony in his private pain. Sunder scowled apprehensively; Hollian gnawed at her lower lip. Together, they started after the Giants, flanked by Stell and Harn. And Covenant went with them like a man whose spirit had lost all its resilience.

Descending toward the trees, Pitchwife began to sing. His voice was hoarse, as if he had spent too much of his life singing threnodies; yet his song was as heart-lifting as trumpets. His melody was full of wind and waves, of salt and strain, and of triumph over pain. As clearly as the new day, he sang:

"Let breakers crash against the shore -

let rocks be rimed with sea and weed,

cliffs carven by the storm -

let calm becalm the deeps,

or wind appall the waves, and sting -

nothing overweighs the poise of Sea and Stone.

The rocks and water-battery of Home endure.

We are the Giants,

born to live,

and bold for going where the dreaming goes.

“Let world be wide beyond belief,

the ocean be as vast as time -

let journeys end or fail,

seaquests fall in ice or blast,

and wandering be forever. Roam -

and roam -

nothing tarnishes the poise of Sea and Stone.

The hearth and harbourage of Home endure.

We are the Giants,

born to sail,

and bold to go wherever dreaming goes.”

On his song went, on through the trees and the fall-fire of the leaves, on into poignancy and yearning and the eagerness to hear any tale the world told. It carried the quest forward, lightened Seadreamer's gaze; it eased the discomfort of the Stonedownors like an affirmation against the unknown, gave a spring to the dispassionate strides of the Haruchai, Echoing in Covenant's mind like the thronged glory of the trees, it solaced his unambergrised heart for a time, so that he could walk the land which had been Foamfollower's home without faltering.

He had been too long under the Sunbane, too long away from the Land he remembered. His eyes drank at the trees and the grasslands, the scapes and vistas, as if such things ended a basic drought, restored to him the reasons for his quest. Beyond the hills, Seareach became a lush profusion of grapes, like a vineyard gone wild for centuries; and in it birds flocked, beasts made their homes. If he had not lacked Linden's vision, he could have spent days simply renewing his sense of health.

But he was condemned to the surface of what he beheld. As the leagues stretched ahead of him, threescore or more to the coast, his urgency returned. At his back, people were dying to pay for every day of his journey. Yet he could not walk any faster. A crisis was brewing within him. Power; venom; rage. Impossible to live with wild magic. Impossible to live without it. Impossible to keep all the promises he had made. He had no answer. He was as mortal as any leper. His tension was futile. Seeking to delay the time of impact, when the storm born of venom and doubt would hit, he cast around for ways to occupy his mind.

Linden was wrapped up in her efforts to recover from the damage the Sunbane and Sarangrave Flat had done to her. Sunder and Hollian shared an air of discomfiture, as if they no longer knew what they were doing. So Covenant turned to the Giants, to Pitchwife, who was as loquacious as the First was stern.

His misshapen features worked grotesquely as he talked; but his appearance was contradicted by his lucid gaze and irrepressible humour. At the touch of a question, he spoke about the ancient Home of the Giants, about the wide seas of the world, about the wonders and mysteries of roaming. When he became excited, his breathing wheezed in his cramped lungs; but for him, even that difficult sound was a form of communication, an effort to convey something quintessential about himself. His talk was long and full of digressions, Giantish apostrophes to the eternal grandeur of rock and ocean; but gradually he came to speak of the Search, and of the Giants who led it.

Cable Seadreamer's role needed no explanation; his Earth-Sight guided the Search. And his muteness, the extravagant horror which had bereft him of voice, as if the attempt to put what he saw into speech had sealed his throat, only made his claim on the Search more absolute.

But being Seadreamer's brother was not the reason for Grimmand Honninscrave's presence. The Giantclave had selected him primarily for his skill as pilot and captain; he was the Master of the dromond Starfare's Gem, and proud in the pride of his ship.

As for the First, she was a Swordmain, one of the few Swordmainnir among the current generation of the Giants, who had maintained for millennia a cadre of such fighters to aid their neighbours and friends at need. She had been chosen because she was known to be as resolute as Stone, as crafty as Sea-and because she had bested every other Swordmain to win a place at the head of the Search.

“But why?” asked Covenant. “Why did she want the job?”

“Why?” Pitchwife grinned. “In good sooth, why should she not? She is a Swordmain, trained for battle. She knows, as do we all, that this wound will grow to consume the Earth unless it is opposed. And she believes that its ill is already felt, even across the land of Home, giving birth to evil seas and blighted crops. And cripples.” His eyes glinted merrily, defying Covenant to pity his deformity.

“All right.” Covenant swallowed the indignation he usually felt whenever he encountered someone whose happiness seemed to be divorced from the hard fact of pain. “Tell me about yourself. Why were you chosen?”

“Ah, that is no great mystery. Every ship, however proud, must have a pitchwife, and I am an adept, cunning to mend both hawser and shipstone. Also, my lesser stature enables me for work in places where other Giants lack space. And for another reason, better than all others.” He lowered his voice and spoke privately to Covenant. “I am husband to the First of the Search.”

Involuntarily, Covenant gaped. For an instant, he believed that Pitchwife was jesting ironically. But the Giant's humour was personal. “To me,” he whispered, so that the First could not hear him, “she is named Gossamer Glowlimn. I could not bear that she should sail on such a Search without me.”

Covenant remained silent, unable to think of any adequate response. I am husband- Echoes of Joan ran through him; but when he tried to call up her face, he could find nothing except images of Linden.

During the evening of the quest's third day in Seareach, Linden borrowed Hollian's dirk to cut the splint away from her leg. Her companions watched as she tentatively flexed her knee, then her ankle. Light twinges of pain touched her face, but she ignored them, concentrating on the inner state of her bones and tissues. After a moment, her features relaxed. “It's just stiff. I'll try walking on it tomorrow.”

A sigh rustled through the company. “That is good,” the First said kindly. Sunder nodded gruff agreement. Hollian stooped to Linden, hugged her. Linden accepted their gladness; but her gaze reached toward Covenant, and her eyes were full of tears for which he had no answer. He could not teach her to distinguish between the good and ill of her health sense.

The next morning, she put weight on her foot, and the bones held. She was not ready to do much walking; so Seadreamer continued to carry her. But the following day she began working to redevelop the strength of her legs, and the day after that she was able to walk at intervals for nearly half the company's march.

By that time, Covenant knew they were nearing the Sea. The terrain had been sloping slowly for days, losing elevation along rumpled hills and wide, wild, hay leas, down fields like terraces cut for Giants. Throngs of grave old woods leaned slightly, as if they were listening to the Sea; and now the crispness of the air had been replaced by moisture and weight, so that every breeze felt like the sighing of the ocean. He could not smell salt yet; but he did not have much time left.

That night, his dreams were troubled by the hurling of breakers. The tumult turned his sleep into a nightmare of butchery, horror made all the more unbearable by vagueness, for he did not know who was being butchered or why, could not perceive any detail except blood, blood everywhere, the blood of innocence and self-judgment, permitting murder. He awoke on the verge of screams, and found that he was drenched by a thunderstorm. He was cold, and could not stop shivering.

After a time, the blue lash and clap of the storm passed, riding a stiff wind out of the east; but the rain continued. Dawn came, shrouded in torrents which soaked the quest until Covenant's bones felt sodden, and even the Giants moved as if they were carrying too much weight. Shouting over the noise, Pitchwife suggested that they find or make shelter to wait out the storm. But Covenant could not wait. Every day of his journey cost the lives of people whose only hope arose from their belief in the Clave; and the Clave was false. He drove his friends into movement with a rage which made the nerves of his right arm ache as if his fingers could feel the hot burden of his ring. The companions went forward like lonely derelicts, separated from each other by the downpour.

And when at last the storm broke, opening a rift of clear sky across the east, there against the horizon stood the lorn stump of Coercri's lighthouse. Upraised like a stonework forearm from which the fist had been cut away, it defied weather and desuetude as if it were the last gravestone of the Unhomed.

Giants who had loved laughter and children and fidelity, and had been slaughtered in their dwellings because they had not chosen to defend themselves.

As the rain hissed away into the west, Covenant could hear waves pounding the base of The Grieve, A line of grey ocean lay beyond the rim of the cliff; and above it, a few hardy terns had already taken flight after the storm, crying like the damned.

He advanced until he could see the dead city.

Its back was toward him; Coercri faced the Sea. The Unhomed had honeycombed the sheer cliff above the breakers so that their city confronted the east and hope. Only three entrances marked the rear of The Grieve, three tunnels opening the rock like gullets, forever gaping in granite sorrow over the blow which had reft them of habitation and meaning.

“Thomas Covenant.” The First was at his side, with Pitchwife and Seadreamer behind her. “Giantfriend.” She held her voice like a broadsword at rest, unthreatening, but ready for combat. “You have spoken of Giants and jheherrin; and in our haste, we did not question that which we did not understand. And we have waited in patience for the other tale of which you gave promise. But now we must ask. This place is clearly Giant-wrought- clearly the handiwork of our people. Such craft is the blood and bone of Home to us. About it we could not be mistaken.”

Her tone tightened. “But this place which you name The Grieve has been empty for many centuries. And the jheherrin of which you spoke are also a tale many centuries old. Yet you are human-more short-lived than any other people of the Earth. How is it possible that you have known Giants?”

Covenant grimaced; he had no room in his heart for that question. “Where I come from,” he muttered, “time moves differently. I've never been here before. But I knew Saltheart Foamfollower. Maybe better than I knew myself. Three and a half thousand years ago.” Then abruptly the wrench of pain in his chest made him gasp. Three and a half-! It was too much-a gulf so deep it might have no bottom. How could he hope to make restitution across so many years?

Clenching himself to keep from panting, he started down the slope toward the central tunnel, the main entrance to Coercri.

The clouds had withdrawn westward, uncovering the sun. It shone almost directly into the stone passage, showed him his way to the cliff-face. He strode the tunnel as if he meant to hurl himself from the edge when he reached it. But Brian and Hergrom flanked him, knowing what he knew. His companions followed him in silence, hushed as if he were leading them into a graveyard hallowed by old blood. Formally, they entered The Grieve.

At its end, the tunnel gave onto a rampart cut into the east-most part of the cliff. To the north and south, Coercri curved away, as if from the blunt prow of the city. From that vantage, Covenant was able to see all The Grieve outstretched on either hand. It was built vertically, level after level of ramparts down the precipice; and the tiers projected or receded to match the contours of the rock. As a result, the city front for nearly a thousand feet from cliff edge to base had a knuckled aspect, like hands knotted against the weather and the eroding Sea.

This appearance was emphasized by the salt deposits of the centuries. The guardwalls of the lower ramparts wore grey-white knurs as massive as travertine; and even the highest levels were marked like the mottling of caducity, the accumulated habit of grief.

Behind the ramparts, level after level, were doorways into private quarters and public halls, workshops and kitchens, places for songs and stories and Giantclaves. And at the foot of the cliff, several heavy stone piers stood out from the flat base which girdled the city. Most of these had been chewed to ruins; but, near the centre of Coercri, two piers and the levee between them had endured. Combers rolling in the aftermath of the storm beat up the levee like frustration and obstinance, determined to break the piers, breach the rock, assail Coercri, even if the siege took the whole life of the Earth to succeed.

Considering the city, the First spoke as if she did not wish to show that she was moved. “Here is a habitation, in good sooth-a dwelling fit for Giants. Such work our people do not lightly undertake or inconsiderately perform. Perhaps the Giants of this place knew that they were lost to Home. But they were not lost to themselves. They have given pride to all their people.” Her voice held a faint shimmer like the glow of hot iron.

And Pitchwife lifted up his head as if he could not contain his wildness, and sang like a cry of recognition across the ages:

"We are the Giants,

born to sail,

and bold to go wherever dreaming goes."

Covenant could not bear to listen. Not lost to themselves. No. Not until the end, until it killed them. He, too, could remember songs. Now we are Unhomed, bereft of root and kith and kin. Gripping his passions with both hands to control them, restrain them for a little while yet, he moved away along the rampart.

On the way, he forced himself to look into some of the rooms and halls, like a gesture of duty to the dead.

All the stone of the chambers-chairs, utensils, tables-was intact, though every form of wood or fiber had long since fallen away. But the surfaces were scarred with salt: whorls and swirls across the floors; streaks down the walls; encrustations over the bed frames; spontaneous slow patterns as lovely as frost-work and as corrosive as guilt. Dust or cobwebs could not have articulated more eloquently the emptiness of The Grieve.

Impelled by his private urgency, Covenant returned to the centre of the city. With his companions trailing behind him, he took a crooked stairway which descended back into the cliff, then toward the Sea again. The stairs were made for Giants; he had to half-leap down them awkwardly, and every landing jolted his heart. But the daylight had begun to fade, and he was in a hurry. He went down three levels before he looked into more rooms.

The first doorway led to a wide hall large enough for scores of Giants. But the second, some distance farther along the face of the city, was shut. It had been closed for ages; all the cracks and joints around the architrave were sealed by salt. His instincts ran ahead of his mind. For reasons he could not have named, he barked to Brinn, “Get this open. I want to see what's inside.”

Brian moved to obey; but the salt prevented him from obtaining a grip.

At once, Seadreamer joined him and began scraping the crust away like a man who could not stand closed doors, secrets. Soon, he and Brinn were able to gain a purchase for their fingers along the edge of the stone. With an abrupt wrench, they swung the door outward.

Air, which had been tombed for so long that it no longer held any taint of must or corruption, spilled through the opening.

Within was a private living chamber. For a moment, dimness obscured it. But as Covenant's eyes adjusted, he made out a dark form sitting upright and rigid in a chair beside the hearth.

Mummified by dead air and time and subtle salt, a Giant.

His hands crushed the arms of the chair, perpetuating forever his final agony. Splinters of old stone still jutted between his fingers.

His forehead above his vacant eyesockets was gone. The top of his head was gone. His skull was empty, as if his brain had exploded, tearing away half his cranium.

Hellfire!

“It was as the old tellers have said.” Brinn sounded like the dead air. “Thus they were slain by the Giant-Raver. Unresisting in their homes.”

Hell and blood!

Trembling, Seadreamer moved forward. “Seadreamer,” the First said softly from the doorway, warning him. He did not stop. He touched the dead Giant's hand, tried to unclose those rigid fingers. But the ancient flesh became dust in his grasp and sifted like silence to the floor.

A spasm convulsed his face. For an instant, his eyes glared madly. His fists bunched at the sides of his head, as if he were trying to fight back against the Earth-Sight. Then he whirled and surged toward Covenant as if he meant to wrest the tale of the Unhomed from Covenant by force.

“Giant!”

The First's command struck Seadreamer. He veered aside, lurched to press himself against the wall, struggling for self-mastery.

Shouts that Covenant could not still went on in his head: curses that had no meaning. He forced his way from the room, hastened to continue his descent toward the base of Coercri.

He reached the flat headrock of the piers as the terns were settling to roost for the night and the last pink of sunset was fading from the Sea. The waves gathered darkly as they climbed the levee, then broke into froth and phosphorescence against the stone. Coercri loomed above him; with the sun behind it, it seemed to impend toward the Sea as if it were about to fall.

He could barely discern the features of his companions. Linden, the Giants, Sunder and Hollian, the Haruchai, even Vain-they were night and judgment to him, a faceless jury assembled to witness the crisis of his struggle with the past, with memory and power, and to pronounce doom. He knew what would happen as if he had foreseen it with his guts, though his mind was too lost in passion to recognize anything except his own need. He had made promises-He seemed to hear the First saying before she spoke, “Now, Thomas Covenant. The time has come. At your behest, we have beheld The Grieve. Now we must have the story of our lost kinfolk. There can be neither joy nor decision for us until we have heard the tale.”

The water tumbled its rhythm against the levee, echoing her salt pain. He answered without listening to himself, “Start a fire. A big one.” He knew what the Giants would do when they heard what they wanted. He knew what he would do.

The Haruchai obeyed. With brands they had garnered from Seareach, and Seadreamer's firepot, they started a blaze near the base of the piers, then brought driftwood to stoke the flames. Soon the fire was as tall as Giants, and shadows danced like memories across the ramparts.

Now Covenant could see. Sunder and Hollian held back their apprehension sternly. Linden watched him as if she feared he had fallen over the edge of sanity. The faces of the Giants were suffused with firelight and waiting, with hunger for any anodyne. Reflecting flames, the flat countenances of the Haruchai looked inviolate and ready, as pure as the high mountains where they made their homes. And Vain-Vain stood black against the surrounding night, and revealed nothing.

But none of that mattered to Covenant. The uselessness of his own cursing did not matter. Only the fire held any meaning; only Coercri, and the lorn reiteration of the waves. He could see Foamfollower in the flames. Words which he had suppressed for long days of dread and uncertainty came over him like a creed, and he began to speak.

He told what he had learned about the Unhomed, striving to heal their slaughter by relating their story.

Joy is in the ears that hear.

Foamfollower! Did you let your people die because you knew I was going to need you?

The night completed itself about him as he spoke, spared only by stars from being as black as The Grieve. Firelight could not ease the dark of the city or the dark of his heart. Nothing but the surge of the Sea — rise and fall, dirge and mourning-touched him as he offered their story to the Dead.

Fully, formally, omitting nothing, he described how the Giants had come to Seareach through their broken wandering. He told how Damelon had welcomed the Unhomed to the Land and had foretold that their bereavement would end when three sons were born to them, brothers of one birth. And he spoke about the fealty and friendship which had bloomed between the Giants and the Council, giving comfort and succour to both; about the high Giantish gratitude and skill which had formed great Revelstone for the Lords; about the concern which had led Kevin to provide for the safety of the Giants before he kept his mad tryst with Lord Foul and invoked the Ritual of Desecration; about the loyalty which brought the Giants back to the Land after the Desecration, bearing with them the First Ward of Kevin's Lore so that the new Lords could learn the Earthpower anew. These things Covenant detailed as they had been told to him.

But then Saltheart Foamfollower entered his story, riding against the current of the Soulsease toward Revelstone to tell the Lords about the birth of three sons. That had been a time of hope for the Unhomed, a time for the building of new ships and the sharing of gladness. After giving his aid to the Quest for the Staff of Law, Foamfollower had returned to Seareach; and the Giants had begun to prepare for the journey Home.

At first, all had gone well. But forty years later a silence fell over Seareach. The Lords were confronted with the army of the Despiser and the power of the Illearth Stone. Their need was sore, and they did not know what had happened to the Giants. Therefore Korik's mission was sent to Coercri with the Lords Hyrim and Shetra, to give and ask whatever aid was possible.

The few Bloodguard who survived brought back the same tale which Foamfollower later told Covenant.

And he related it now as if it were the unassuageable threnody of the Sea. His eyes were full of firelight, blind to his companions. He heard nothing except the breakers in the levee and his own voice. Deep within himself, he waited for the crisis, knowing it would come, not knowing what form it would take.

For doom had befallen the three brothers: a fate more terrible to the Giants than any mere death or loss of Home. The three had been captured by Lord Foul, imprisoned by the might of the Illearth Stone, mastered by Ravers. They became the mightiest servants of the Despiser. And one of them came to The Grieve.

Foamfollower's words echoed in Covenant. He used them without knowing what they would call forth. “Fidelity,” the Giant had said. "Fidelity was our only reply to our extinction. We could not have borne our decline if we had not taken pride.

“So my people were filled with horror when they saw their pride riven-torn from them like rotten sails in the wind. They saw the portent of their hope of Home-the three brothers-changed from fidelity to the most potent ill by one small stroke of the Despiser's evil. Who in the Land could hope to stand against a Giant-Raver? Thus the Unhomed became the means to destroy that to which they had held themselves true. And in horror at the naught of their fidelity, their folly practiced through long centuries of pride, they were transfixed. Their revulsion left no room in them for thought or resistance or choice. Rather than behold the cost of their failure-rather than risk the chance that more of them would be made Soulcrusher's servants-they elected to be slain.”

Foamfollower's voice went on in Covenant's mind, giving him words. “They put away their tools.”

But a change had come over the night. The air grew taut. The sound of the waves was muffled by the concentration of the atmosphere. Strange forces roused themselves within the city.

“And banked their fires.”

The ramparts teemed with shadows, and the shadows began to take form. Light as eldritch and elusive as sea phosphorescence cast rumours of movement up and down the ways of Coercri.

“And made ready their homes.”

Glimpses which resembled something Covenant had seen before flickered in the rooms and solidified, shedding a pale glow like warm pearls. Tall ghosts of nacre and dismay began to flow along the passages.

“As if in preparation for departure.”

The Dead of The Grieve had come to haunt the night.

For one mute moment, he did not comprehend. His companions stood across the fire from him, watching the spectres; and their shadows denounced him from the face of Coercri. Was it true after all that Foamfollower had deserted his people for Covenant's sake? That Lord Foul's sole reason for destroying the Unhomed was to drive him, Thomas Covenant, into despair?

Then his crisis broke over him at last, and he understood. The Dead had taken on definition as if it were the flesh of life, had drifted like a masque of distress to the places which had been their homes. And there, high on the southmost rampart of The Grieve, came the Giant-Raver to appall them.

He shone a lurid green, and his right fist clenched a steaming image of emerald, dead echo of the Illearth Stone. With a deliberate hunger which belied his swiftness, he approached the nearest Giant. She made no effort to escape or resist. The Raver's fist and Stone passed into her skull, into her mind; and both were torn away with a flash of power.

In silence and rapine, the Giant-Raver moved to his next victim.

The Dead of The Grieve were re-enacting their butchery. The flow of their movements, the Giant-Raver's progress from victim to victim, was as stately as a gavotte; and the flash of each reiterated death glared across the waves without noise or end, punctuating heinously the ghost dance of the Unhomed. Damned by the way they had abandoned the meaning of their lives, they could do nothing in the city which was their one great grave except repeat their doom, utter it again and again across the ages whenever Coercri held any eyes to behold their misery.

From room to room the Giant-Raver went, meting out his ancient crime. Soon, a string of emeralds covered the highest rampart as each new blast pierced Covenant's eyes, impaled his vision and his mind like the nails of crucifixion.

And as the masque went on, multiplying its atrocity, the living Giants broke, as he had known they would. His anguish had foreseen it all. Joy is in the ears that hear. Yes, but some tales could not be redeemed by the simple courage of the listener, by the willingness of an open heart. Death such as this, death piled cruelly upon death, century after century, required another kind of answer. In their desperation, the living Giants accepted the reply Covenant had provided for them.

Pitchwife led the way. With a sharp wail of aggrievement, he rushed to the bonfire and plunged his arms to the shoulders in among the blazing firewood. Flames slapped his face, bent his head back in a mute howl against the angle of his crippled chest.

Linden cried out. But the Haruchai understood, and did not move.

The First joined Pitchwife. Kneeling on the stone, she clamped her hands around a raging log and held it.

Seadreamer did not stop at the edge of the flames. Surging as if the Earth-Sight had deprived him of all restraint, he hurled his whole body into the fire, stood there with the blaze writhing about him like the utterance of his agony.

Caamora: the ritual fire of grief. Only in such savage physical hurt could the Giants find release and relief for the hurting of their souls.

Covenant had been waiting for this, anticipating and dreading it. Caamora. Fire. Foamfollower had walked selflessly into the magma of Hotash Slay and had emerged as the Pure One.

The prospect terrified him. But he had no other solution to the venom in his veins, to the power he could not master, had no other answer to the long blame of the past. The Dead repeated their doom in The Grieve above him, damned to die that way forever unless he could find some grace for them. Foamfollower had given his life gladly so that Covenant and the Land could live. Covenant began moving, advancing toward the fire.

Brinn and Hergrom opposed him. But then they saw the hope and ruin in his eyes. They stepped aside.

“Covenant!”

Linden came running toward him. But Cail caught her, held her back.

Heat shouted against Covenant's face like the voice of his destiny; but he did not stop. He could not stop. Entranced and compelled, he rode the mourning of the Sea forward.

Into the fire.

At once, he became wild magic and grief, burning with an intense white flame that no other blaze could touch. Shining like the gem of the krill, he strode among the logs and embers to Seadreamer's side. The Giant did not see him, was too far gone in agony to see him. Remembering Foamfollower's pain, Covenant thrust at Seadreamer. Wild magic blasted the Giant from the fire, sent him sprawling across the cold stone.

Slowly, Covenant looked around at his companions. They were distorted by the flames, gazing at him as if he were a ghoul. Linden's appalled stare hurt him. Because he could not reply to her in any other way, he turned to his purpose.

He took hold of the wild magic, shaped it according to his will, so that it became his own ritual, an articulation of compassion and rage for all torment, all loss.

Burning, he opened himself to the surrounding flames.

They rushed to incinerate him; but he was ready. He mastered the bonfire with argence, bent it to his command. Flame and power were projected outward together, so that the blaze lashed tremendously into the night.

He spread his arms to the city, stretched himself as if he yearned to embrace the whole of The Grieve.

In wild magic, white puissance without sound, he shouted: x

Come! This is the caamora! Come and be healed!

And they came. His might and his will interrupted the masque, broke the geas which locked the Dead in their weird damnation. Hearing him, they turned as if they had been waiting through all the long ages of their anguish for his call. In throngs and eagerness, they began flowing down the passages of Coercri.

Like a river, they swept out onto the headrock of the piers.

Toward the fire.

The Giant-Raver tried to pursue them. But the breaking of their eternal round seemed to break also his hold over them, break the spell of his maleficent glee. His form frayed as he moved, blurred until he was only a tingling green smear of memory across The Grieve-until he faded into the night, and was lost.

And the Dead continued toward the fire.

The Haruchai drew back, taking Linden and the Stonedownors with them. Pitchwife and the First went with aching bones to tend Seadreamer.

Vain did not move. He stood in the path of the Dead and watched Covenant's immolation with gaiety in his eyes.

But the Dead passed around him, streamed forward. Need and hope shone through their pearl faces.

Reaching out to them as if they were all one, as if they were only Foamfollower in multiform guise, Covenant took them into his embrace, and wept white fire.

The wild magic struck pain into them, seared them the way a physical conflagration would have seared their bodies. Their forms went rigid, jaws stretched, eyes stared-spectres screaming in soul-anguish. But the screaming was also laughter.

And the laughter prevailed.

Covenant could not hold them. They came into his arms, but they had no bodies that he could hug. Nothing filled his embrace; no contact or benison restored him to himself. He might have been alone in the fire.

Yet the laughter stayed with him. It was glad mirth, joy and restitution which Foamfollower would have known how to share. It ran in his ears like the Sea and sustained him until everything else was gone-until his power was spent against the heavens, and the night closed over him like all the waters of the world.

Twenty Seven: Giantfriend

THE next morning, the dromond Starfare's Gem arrived in a gleam of white sails, as if it had been newly created from the sun's reflection on the blue Sea. It hove into sight like a stone castle riding gallantly before the wind, beautifully both, swift and massive, matching the grace and strength of the Giants.

Covenant watched its approach from the cliff above Coercri. He sat far enough back from the edge to appease his fear of heights, but close enough to have a good view. Linden, Sunder, and Hollian were with him, though he had only asked for the company of the two Stonedownors. Brinn and Cail, Stell and Harn were there also. And Vain had followed Covenant or Linden up through The Grieve, though his blackness offered no explanation of why he had done so. Only Hergrom and Ceer remained below with the Giants.

Earlier, Sunder had told Covenant how he had been saved when his power failed. Linden had watched him amid the blaze, reading his wild magic, gauging the limits of his endurance. One moment before the white flame had guttered and gone out, she had shouted a warning. Seadreamer had dashed into the bonfire and had emerged on the far side with Covenant in his arms, unharmed. Even Covenant's clothing had not been singed.

In the dawn, he had awakened as if from the first irenic sleep of his life. Sunrise had lain across the headrock of the city, lighting the faces of Linden and the First as they sat regarding him. The First had worn her iron beauty as if behind it lay a deep gentleness. But Linden's gaze was ambiguous, undecided.

In a severe tone, she asked, “Why didn't you tell me what you were going to do?”

“I didn't dare,” he replied, giving her the truth. “I was too afraid of it. I couldn't even admit it to myself.”

She shifted her position, drawing somewhat away from him. “I thought you'd gone crazy.”

He sighed, allowed himself to express at least that much of his loneliness. “Maybe I did. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.”

She frowned and fell silent, looking away toward the Sunbirth Sea. After a moment, the First roused herself to speak.

“Thomas Covenant,” she said, “I know not whether in truth the path of the Search lies with you. I have not seen with my own eyes the Sunbane, nor met in my own person the malice of him whom you name the Despiser, nor felt in my own heart the nature of what must be done. But Pitchwife urges that I trust you. Cable Seadreamer has beheld a vision of healing, when he had learned to believe that no healing remained in all the world. And for myself-” She swallowed thickly, "I would gladly follow a man who can so give peace to the damned.

“Giantfriend,” she said, containing her emotion with formality, “the Search will bear you to the land of the Elohim. There we believe that knowledge of the One Tree may be gained. If it lies within our doing, we will accompany you to the Tree, hoping for an answer to the peril of the Earth. This we will do in the name of our people, who have been redeemed from their doom.”

She passed a hand over her tears and moved away, leaving him eased, as if it were the outcome of his dreams.

But he arose, because there were still things he had to do, needs to be met, responsibilities to be considered. He spoke to the Stonedownors, led them to the upper rim of Coercri with Linden, the Haruchai, and Vain behind him, sat facing the morning and the Sea and the unknown Earth.

Now he would have liked to be alone with the aftermath of his caamora. But he could see the time of his departure from the Land arriving. It sailed the same salt wind which ruffled his hair and beard, and he knew he had no choice. Every day, more lives were shed to feed the Sunbane. The Land's need was a burden he could not carry alone.

For a time, he sat exchanging silence with his companions. But at last he found the will to speak. “Sunder. Hollian.” They sat attentively, as if he had become a figure of awe. He felt like a butcher as he said, “I don't want you to come with me.”

The eh-Brand's eyes widened as if he had slapped her without warning or cause. Surprise and pain made Sunder snap, “Ur-Lord?”

Covenant winced, fumbled to apologize. “I'm sorry. This is hard to say. I didn't mean it the way it sounded.” He took hold of himself. “There's something else I want you to do.”

Hollian frowned at him, echoing Sunder's uncertainty.

“It's the Sunbane,” he began. “I'm going to leave the Land-try to find the One Tree. So I can replace the Staff of Law. I don't know what else to do. But the Clave-” He swallowed at the anger rising in his throat. “I don't know how long I'm going to be gone, and every day they kill more people. Somebody has to stop them. I want you to do it.”

He stared out to Sea, went on speaking as if he feared the reaction of his friends. “I want you to go back to the Upper Land. To the villages-to every Stonedown or Woodhelven you can find. Tell them the truth about the Clave. Convince them. Make them stop surrendering to the Riders. So the Sunbane won't destroy everything before I get back.”

“Thomas Covenant.” Sunder's fists were clenched as if to hold off outrage. “Have you forgotten Mithil Stonedown? Have you forgotten Stonemight Woodhelven? The people of the Land shed strangers to answer their own need for blood. We will convince no one. We will be slain by the first Stonedown we dare to enter.”

“No.” Covenant shook his head flatly. He knew what he meant to do, and felt sure of it. “You'll have something that will make them listen to you. And you can use it to defend yourselves if you have to.” With both hands, he removed the cloth-wrapped krill from under his belt, and extended it toward Sunder.

“Covenant?” The Graveller looked his astonishment at Linden, at Hollian, then back toward Covenant. Linden sat with her eyes downcast, watching the way her fingers touched the stone. But Hollian's face brightened as if in recognition. “The krill is yours,” Sunder murmured, asking for comprehension. “I am a Graveller-nothing more. Of what use is such a periapt to me?”

Deliberately, Covenant held out his hope. "I think you can attune yourself to it. The way you did to Memla's rukh. I think you can use the krill the way you use the Sunstone. And if you put the two together, you won't need to shed blood to have power. You can use the krill to rouse the orcrest. You'll be able to raise water, grow plants, do it all. Without blood. Any village will listen to that. They won't try to kill you. They'll try to keep you.

“And that's not all. This is power. Proof that the Sunbane isn't the whole truth. It proves that they have a choice. They don't have to obey the Clave, don't have to let themselves be slaughtered.”

With a twitch of his hands, he flung off part of the cloth so that the krill shone into the faces of his companions. “Sunder,” he implored. “Hollian. Take it. Convince them. We're all responsible — all of us who know the na-Mhoram is a Raver. Don't let the Clave go on killing them.” The light of the krill filled his orbs; he could not see how his friends responded. “Give me a chance to save them.”

For a moment, he feared the Stonedownors would refuse the burden he offered them. But then the krill was taken from him. Sunder flipped cloth back over the gem. Carefully, he rewrapped the blade, tucked it away under his leather jerkin. His eyes gleamed like echoes of white fire.

“Thomas Covenant,” he said, "ur-Lord and Unbeliever, white gold wielder, I thank you. It is sooth that my heart did not relish this quest across unknown seas and lands. I have no knowledge of such matters and little strength for them. You have Giants with you, and Haruchai, and the power of the white ring. I am of no use to you.

“I have learned that the Sunbane is a great evil. But it is an evil which I comprehend and can confront.” Hollian's countenance supported his words. Her relief was a glow of gratitude. “I desire to strive somewhat for my people-and to strive against this Clave, which so maligns our lives.”

Covenant blinked at the repetitions of silver arcing across his sight. He was too proud of Sunder and Hollian to speak.

They rose to their feet. “Ur-Lord,” the Graveller said, “we will do as you ask. If any blow may be struck against Clave and Sunbane by mortals such as we are, we will strike it. You have restored to me the faith of Nassic my father. Be certain of us while we live.”

“And be swift,” added Hollian, “for we are but two, and the Sunbane is as vast as all the Land.”

Covenant had not noticed Stell and Ham unobtrusively leave the cliff; but they returned now, carrying supplies on their backs. Before Covenant or the Stonedownors could speak, Brinn said, “The Sunbane is indeed vast, but you will not meet it alone. The Haruchai will not surrender their service. And I say to you that my people also will not suffer the Clave unopposed. Look for aid wherever you go, especially when your way leads within reach of Revelstone.”

Sunder swallowed thickly, unable to master his voice. Hollian's eyes reflected the sunshine wetly.

The sight of them standing there in their courage and peril made Covenant's fragile calm ache. “Get going,” he said huskily. “We'll be back. Count on it.”

In a rush of emotion, Hollian came to him, stooped to grip her arms around his neck and kiss his face. Then she went to Linden. Linden returned her embrace stiffly.

A moment later, the Stonedownors turned away. They left the cliff with Stell and Harn beside them.

Covenant watched them go. The two Haruchai moved as if nothing could ever change who they were. But Sunder and Hollian walked like people who had been given the gift of meaning for their lives. They were just ordinary people, pitifully small in comparison to the task they had undertaken; and yet their valour was poignant to behold. As they passed over the ridge where the ruined lighthouse stood, they had their arms around each other.

After a moment, Linden broke the silence. “You did the right thing.” Her voice wore severity like a mask. “They've been uncomfortable ever since we left Landsdrop-the Sunbane is the only world they understand. And they've lost everything else. They need to do something personal and important. But you-” She stared at him as if in her eyes he had become an object of fear and desire. “I don't know you. I don't know if you're the strongest man I've ever met, or the sickest. With all that venom in you, you still-I don't know what I'm doing here.” Without a pause, as if she were still asking the same question, she said, “Why did you give them the krill? I thought you needed it. A weapon against Vain.”

Yes, Covenant breathed. And an alternative to wild magic. That's what I thought. But by accepting the krill, Sunder and Hollian had made it once more into a tool of hope. “I don't want any more weapons,” he murmured to Linden. “I'm already too dangerous.”

She held his gaze. The sudden clarity of her expression told him that, of all the things he had ever said to her, this, at least, was one she could comprehend.

Then a shout echoed up the face of Coercri. “Giantfriend!” It was Pitchwife's voice. “Come! Starfare's Gem approaches!”

The echoes went on in Covenant's mind after the shout had faded. Giantfriend. He was who he was, a man half crippled by loneliness and responsibility and regret. But he had finally earned the title the First had given him.

The dromond came drifting slowly, neatly, toward the piers. Its rigging was full of Giants furling the sails.

Carefully, like a man who did not want to die, Covenant got to his feet. With Linden, Brinn, and Cail, he left the cliff.

They went down to meet the ship.