Stephen Donaldson - The Power That Preserves

Covenant sighed, and pushed himself to his feet. “Yes.” He did not want to leave the comfort of the Colossus. “Ready or not. Let’s get on with it.”

He walked between Bannor and Foamfollower, and they took him up the last of the hills to a place where he could look down the cliff of Landsdrop to the Spoiled Plains.

The precipice seemed to leap out from behind the hill as if it had been hiding in ambush for Covenant-abruptly, he found himself looking over the edge and down two thousand feet-but he gripped the arms of his friends on either side and breathed deeply to hold back his vertigo. After a moment, the suddenness of the view faded, and he began to notice details.

At the base of the hill on his right, the River Landrider swooped downward in a final rush to pour heavily over the lip of Landsdrop. The tumult of its roar was complex. In this region, the cliff broke into four or five ragged stairs, so that the waterfall went down by steps, all pounding simultaneously, anharmonically. From the bottom of the Fall, it angled away south-eastward into the perpetual wasteland of the Spoiled Plains.

“There,” said Bannor, “there begins its ordeal. There the Landrider becomes the Ruinwash, and flows polluted toward the Sea. It is a murky and repelling water, unfit for use by any but its own unfit denizens. But it is your way for a time. It will provide a path for you through much of these hazardous Plains. And it will place you south of Kurash Qwellinir.

“You know”- he nodded to Foamfollower- “that the Spoiled Plains form a wide deadland around the promontory of Ridjeck Thome, where Foul’s Creche juts into the Sea. Within that deadland lies Kurash Qwellinir, the Shattered Hills. Some say that these Hills were formed by the breaking of a mountain-others, that they were shaped from the slag and refuse of Corruption’s war caverns, furnaces, breeding dens. However they were made, they are a maze to bewilder the approach of any foe. And within them lies Gorak Krembal — Hotash Slay. From Sea-cliff to Sea-cliff about the promontory, it defends Corruption’s seat with lava, so that none may pass that way to gain the one gateless maw of the

Creche.

“Corruption’s creatures make their way to and from Ridjeck Thome through tunnels which open in secret places among Kurash Qwellinir. But it is in my heart that such an approach will not avail you. I do not doubt that a Giant may find a tunnel within the maze. But on that road all Corruption’s defending armies stand before you. You cannot pass.

“I will tell you of a passage through the Shattered Hills on their southward side. The narrowest point of Hotash Slay is there, where the lava pours through a gash in the cliff into the Sea. A Giant may find crossing in that place.” He spoke as if he were discussing a convenient path among mountains, not an approach to the Corrupter of the Bloodguard. “In that way, it may be that you will take Ridjeck Thome by surprise.”

Foamfollower absorbed this information, and nodded. Then he listened closely while Bannor detailed his route through the maze of Kurash Qwellinir. Covenant tried to listen also, but his attention wandered. He seemed to hear Landsdrop calling to him. Imminent vertigo foiled his concentration. Elena, he breathed to himself. He called her up in his mind, hoping that her image would steady him. But the emerald radiance of her fate made him wince and groan.

No! he averred into the approach of dizziness. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s my dream. I can do something about it.

Foamfollower and Bannor were looking at him strangely. His fingers gripped them feebly, urgently. He could not take his eyes off the waterfall’s rush. It called him downward like the allure of death.

He took a deep breath. Finger by finger, he forced himself to release his friends. “Let’s get going,” he murmured. “I can’t stand any more waiting.”

The Giant hefted his sack. “I am ready,” he said. “Our supplies are scant-but we have no recourse. We must hope for aliantha on the Lower Land.”

Without looking away from the Fall, Covenant addressed Bannor. He could not ask the Bloodguard to change his decision, so he said, “You’ll bury Triock? He’s earned a decent grave.”

Banner nodded, then said, “I will do another thing also.” He reached one hand into his short robe and drew out the charred metal heels of the Staff of Law. “I will bear these to Revelstone. When the time of my end comes upon me, I will return to the mountain home of the Haruchai . On the way, I will visit Revelstone-if the Lords and Lord’s Keep still stand. I know not what value may remain in this metal, but perhaps the survivors of this war will find some use for it.”

Thank you, Covenant whispered silently.

Banner put the bands away and bowed once briefly to Covenant and Foamfollower. “Look for help wherever you go,” he said. “Even in the Spoiled Plains, Corruption is not entirely master.” Before they could reply, he turned and trotted away toward the Colossus. As he passed over the hilltop, his back told them as clearly as speech that they would never see him again.

Bannor! Covenant groaned. Was it that bad? He felt bereft, deserted, as if half his support had been taken away.

“Gently, my friend,” Foamfollower breathed. “He has turned his back on vengeance. Two thousand years and more of pure service were violated for him-yet he chooses not to avenge them. Such choices are not easily made. They are not easily borne. Retribution-ah, my friend, retribution is the sweetest of all dark sweet dreams.”

Covenant found himself still staring at the waterfall. The complex plunge of the river had a sweetness all its own. He shook himself. “Hellfire.” The emptiness of his curses seemed appropriate to his condition. “Are we going to do it or aren’t we?”

“We will go.” Covenant felt the Giant’s gaze on him without meeting it. “Covenant-ur-Lord-there is no need for you to endure this descent. Close your eyes, and I will bear you as I did from Kevin’s Watch.”

Covenant hardly heard himself answer, ”That was a long time ago.” Vertigo was beginning to reel in his head. “I’ve got to do this for myself. For a moment, he let slip his resistance and almost fell to his knees. As the suction tugged at his mind, he comprehended that he would have to go into it rather than away from it, that the only way to master vertigo was to find its centre. Somewhere in the centre of the spinning would be an eye, a core of stability. “Just go ahead-so you can catch me.” Only in the eye of the whirl could he find solid ground.

Foamfollower regarded him dubiously, then started down to the edge of the cliff near the Fall. With Covenant limping in his wake, he went to the rim, glanced down to pick the best place for a descent, then lowered himself out of sight over the edge.

Covenant stood for a moment teetering on the lip of Landsdrop. The Fall yawed abysmally from side to side; it beckoned to him like relief from delirium. It was such an easy answer. As his vertigo mounted, he did not see how he could refuse it.

But its upsurge made his pulse hammer in his wounded forehead. He spun around that pain as if it were a pivot, and found that the seductive panic of the plunge was fading. The simple hope that vertigo had a firm centre seemed to make his hope come true. The whirl did not stop, but its hold on him receded, withdrew into the background. Slowly, the pounding in his forehead eased.

He did not fall.

He felt as weak as a starving penitent-hardly able to carry his own weight. But he knelt on the edge, lowered his legs over the rim. Clinging to the top of the cliff with his arms and stomach, he began to hunt blindly for footholds. Soon he was crawling backward down Landsdrop as if it were the precipice of his personal future.