Stephen Donaldson: The Power That Preserves

His voice was sharp in Hiltmark Amorine’s defence, but he stopped when Mhoram with a distracted gesture waved all questions of anger aside. They remained together in silence for a moment. The High Lord felt an aching anticipation of grief, but he forced it down. His eyes wandered back to the bust on the table. Softly, he said, “Has this word been given to Faer Callindrill-mate?”

“Corimini the Eldest of the Loresraat went to her at once. Callindrill studied with him, and he has known them both for many years. He apologized for not first paying his respects to the High Lord.”

Mhoram shrugged away the need for any apology. His helplessness to reach Callindrill hurt him. He was six days from Revelwood by horse. And he could not call upon the Ranyhyn. The Despiser’s army had effectively cut Revelstone off from the Plains of Ra; any Ranyhyn that tried to answer a summons would almost certainly be slaughtered and eaten. All the High Lord could do was wait-and pray that Callindrill and his companions fled Revelwood before Satansfist encircled them. Two thousand warriors and the Hiltmark of the Warward, two of the leaders of the Lorewardens, one Lord — it was a terrible price to pay for Callindrill’s bravado.

But even as he thought this, Mhoram knew that Callindrill was not acting out of bravado. The Lord simply could not endure the thought that Revelwood might perish. Mhoram privately hoped Satansfist would let the tree stand-use it rather than destroy it. But Callindrill had no such hope. Ever since he had faltered during the battle of Doriendor Corishev, he had seen himself as a man who had disgraced his Lord’s duty, failed to meet the challenge of the Land’s need. He had seen himself as a coward. And now Revelwood, the fairest work of the new Lords, was under attack. Mhoram sighed again, and gently touched the bone of the marrowmeld with his fingers.

In the back of his mind, he was readying his decision.

“Quaan, my friend,” he mused grimly, “what have we accomplished in seven years?”

As if this signalled an end to the formal side of their conversation, Quaan lowered himself into a chair opposite Mhoram, and allowed his square shoulders to sag fractionally. “We have prepared for the siege of Revelstone with all our strength. We have restored the Warward somewhat-the ten Howards which survived have been increased to twenty-five. We have brought the people of the Centre Plains here, out of Satansfist’s way. We have stored food, weapons, supplies. The Grey Slayer will require more than a sea of ur-viles and Cavewights to break our hold here.”

“He has more, Quaan.” Mhoram continued to stroke the strangely revealing face of the anundivian yajna bust. “And we have lost the Bloodguard.”

“Through no fault of ours.” Quaan’s pain at the loss made him sound indignant. He had fought side-by-side with the Bloodguard more than any other warrior in the Land. “We could not have known at that time, when the mission to Seareach was given to Korik and the Bloodguard, that the Grey Slayer would attack the Giants with the Illearth Stone. We could not have known that Korik would defeat a Raver and would attempt to bring a piece of the Stone here.”

“We could not have known,” Mhoram echoed hollowly. After all, the end of his oracular dreams was not a great loss. Despite the myriad terrors he had beheld, he had not glimpsed or guessed at Lord Foul’s attack on the Giants in time. “My friend, do you remember what Bannor told us concerning this sculpture?”

“High Lord?”

“He reported that Elena daughter of Lena carved it of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and white gold wielder-and that ur-lord Covenant mistook it for the face of a Bloodguard.” Banner had also reported that Covenant had forced him to tell Elena the name of the Power hidden in the Seventh Ward, so that she could meet the conditions for approaching that Power. But Mhoram was interested for the moment in the resemblance which High Lord Elena had worked into her carving. That had been the starting point, the beginning from which he had travelled to reach his secret knowledge. “She was a true Craftmaster of the bone-sculpting skill. She would not unwittingly have made such confusion possible.”

Quaan shrugged.

Mhoram smiled fondly at the Warmark’s unwillingness to hazard opinions beyond his competence. “My friend,” he said, “I saw the resemblance, but could not decipher it. Ahanna daughter of Hanna aided me. Though she does not know the marrowmeld skill, she has an artist’s eye. She perceived the meaning which Elena made here.

“Quaan, the resemblance is that both ur-lord Covenant the Unbeliever and Banner of the Bloodguard require absolute answers to their own lives. With the Bloodguard it was their Vow. They demanded of themselves either pure, flawless service forever or no service at all. And the Unbeliever demands-“

“He demands,” Quaan said sourly, “that his world is real and ours is not.”

Another smile eased Mhoram’s sombreness, then faded. “This demand for absolute answers is dangerous. Kevin, too, required either victory or destruction.”

The Warmark met Mhoram’s gaze grimly for a moment before he said, “Then do not resummon the Unbeliever. High Lord, he will lay waste the Land to preserve his ‘real’ world.”

Mhoram cocked an eyebrow at Quaan, and his crooked lips tightened. He knew that the Warmark had never trusted Covenant, yet in this time of crisis any doubt was more important, less answerable. But before he could reply, urgent knuckles pounded at his door. The tight voice of a sentry hissed, “High Lord, come swiftly! High Lord!”

Immediately, Mhoram stood and moved toward the door. As he strode, he banished all his reveries, and brought his senses into focus on the ambience of Revelstone, searching it for the cause of the sentry’s distress.

Quaan, reaching the door a step ahead of him, thrust it open. Mhoram hastened out into the bright, round courtyard.

The whole high cavern of the court was clearly illuminated by the pale-yellow light which shone up through the stone floor, but Mhoram did not need to look up to any of the projecting coigns in the cavern walls to see why the sentry had called him. Lord Amatin stood in the centre of the floor’s inextinguishable light. She faced him with her back to her own chambers, as if she had been on her way toward him when the distress had come upon her.

In her hands she gripped the lomillialor communication rod which the Loresraat had given to Revelstone seven years ago.

She looked like a dark shadow against the bright floor, and in her hands the High Wood burned flamelessly, like a slit opening into a furnace. Small cold balls of sparks dropped in spurts from the wood. Mhoram understood instantly that she was receiving a message from whomever it was who held the other communication rod, the one at Revelwood.

He snatched up his long, iron-heeled staff from its tripod outside his door and strode across the courtyard to Amatin. He knew from experience that the sending or receiving of lomillialor messages was an exhausting ordeal. Amatin would want his help. She was not physically strong, and knew it; when word of the Despiser’s army had reached the Lords, she had transferred to Callindrill her responsibility for Revelwood-hers because of her passionate love for lore-because she believed she lacked the sheer bodily toughness to endure prolonged strain. Yet hidden within her slight waifish frame and grave eyes was a capacity for knowledge, a devotion to study, which no other Lord could match. The High Lord had often thought that she was better equipped and less likely to uncover his secret than anyone else in the Land.

Now, silhouetted by the bright floor of the courtyard, she looked thin and frail-a mere image cast by the power in her hands. Her whole body trembled, and she held the lomillialor rod at arm’s length as if to keep it as far from herself as possible without releasing it. She started to speak before Mhoram reached her.