Stephen Donaldson - The Power That Preserves

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

“High Lord Mhoram.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Triock stared at him, tense and entranced.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Together, the Wraiths fled, screaming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fearlessly, he started toward the two men.

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

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

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

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

WITH snow swirling around him like palpable mist, Thomas Covenant left Mithil Stonedown in the company of Saltheart Foamfollower and Lena daughter of Atiaran. The sensation of purpose ran high in him-he felt that all his complex rages had at last found an effective focus-and he strode impatiently northward along the snow-clogged road as if he were no longer conscious of his still-unhealed forehead and lip, or of the damaged condition of his feet, or of fatigue. He walked leaning ahead into the wind like a fanatic.

But he was not well, could not pretend for any length of time that he was well. Snowflakes hurried around him like subtle grey chips of Lord Foul’s malice, seeking to drain the heat of his life. And he felt burdened by Lena. The mother of Elena his daughter stepped proudly at his side as if his companionship honoured her. Before he had travelled half a league toward the mouth of the valley, his knees were trembling, and his breath scraped unevenly past his sore lip. He was forced to stop and rest.

Foamfollower and Lena regarded him gravely, concernedly. But his former resolution to accept help had deserted him; he was too angry to be carried like a child. He rejected with a grimace the tacit offer in Foamfollower’ s eyes.

The Giant also was not well-his wounds gave him pain-and he appeared to understand the impulse behind Covenant’s refusal. Quietly, he asked, “My friend, do you know the way”-he hesitated as if he were searching for a short name-“the way to Ridjeck Thome, Foul’s Creche?”

“I’m leaving that to you.”

Foamfollower frowned. “I know the way-I have it graven in my heart past all forgetting. But if we are separated-“

“I don’t have a chance if we’re separated,” Covenant muttered mordantly. He wished that he could leave the sound of leprosy out of his voice, but the malady was too rife in him to be stifled.

“Separated? Who speaks of separation?” Lena protested before Foamfollower could reply. “Do not utter such things, Giant. We will not be separated. I have preserved-I will not part from him. You are old Giant. You do not remember the giving of life to life in love-or you would not speak of separation.”

In some way, her words twisted the deep knife of Foamfollower’s hurt. “Old, yes.” Yet after a moment he forced a wry grin onto his lips. “And you are altogether too young for me, fair Lena.”

Covenant winced for them both. Have mercy on me, he groaned. Have mercy. He started forward again, but almost at once he tripped on a snow-hidden roughness in the road.