Stephen Donaldson: The Illearth War

He heard Elena. say softly, “I know,” but he disregarded her.

“That's the real lie,” he snarled at the bowl, “that stuff there. That's what makes me feel so healthy I can't stand it.” He took a long breath, then said fervidly, “I don't want it.”

Mhoram held Covenant in a gaze intense with questions. And when Covenant did not waver, the Lord asked in a low voice, a tone of amazement, “My friend, do you wish to die?”

“Use it on that poor devil over there,” Covenant replied dully. “It's got a right to it.”

Without bending the straitness of his look, Mhoram said, “We have made the attempt. You have known us, Unbeliever. You know that we could not refuse the plea of such distress. But the Waynhim is beyond all our succour. Our Healers cannot approach its inner wound. And it nearly died at the touch of hurtloam,”

Still Covenant did not relent.

Behind him, High Lord Elena continued what Mhoram had been saying. "Even the Staff of Law cannot match the power which has warped this Waynhim. Such is our plight, ur-Lord. The Illearth Stone surpasses us.

"This Waynhim has told us much. Much that was obscure is now clear. Its name was dharmakshetra , which in the Waynhim tongue means, `to brave the enemy.' Now it calls itself dukkha - 'victim.' Because its people desired knowledge of the Despiser's plotting, it went to Foul's Creche. There it was captured, and-and wronged-and then set free-as a warning to its people, I think. It has told us much.

"Unbeliever, we know that when you first delivered the Despiser's prophecy to High Lord Prothall son of Dwillian and the Council of Lords forty years ago, many things were not understood concerning the Grey Slayer's intent. Why did he warn the Lords that Drool Rockworm had found the Staff of Law under-Mount Thunder? Why did he seek to prepare us for our fate? Why did he aid Drool's quest for dark might, and then betray the Cavewight? These questions are now answered. Drool possessed the Stag, and with it unearthed the buried bane, the Illearth Stone. By reason of these powers, the Despiser was at Drool's mercy while the Cavewight lived.

"But with Lord Mhoram and High Lord Prothall, you retrieved the Staff and brought the threat of Drool Rockworm to an end. Thus the Stone fell into Lord Foul's hands. He knew that the Stone, joined with his own lore and power, is a greater strength than the Staff of Law. And he knew that we are no masters for even that little might which we possess.

"In forty years, we have not rested. We have spoken to all the people of the Land. The Loresraat has grown greatly, giving us warriors and Lorewardens and Lords to meet our need. The rhadhamaerl and lillianrill have laboured to the utmost. And all have given themselves to the study of the Two Wards, and of the Staff. Gains have been made. Trothgard, where the Lords swore their promise of healing to the Land, has flowered, and we have made there works undreamed by our forefathers. The Staff meets many needs. But the heart of our failure remains.

"For all our lore, all our knowledge of the Staff and the Earthpower, comes to us from Kevin, High Lord of the Old Lords. And he was defeated-yes, and worse than defeated. Now we face the same foe, made greatly stronger by the Illearth Stone. And we have recovered only Two of the Seven Wards in which

Kevin left his Lore. And at their core these Two are beyond us. Some weakness of wisdom or incapacity of spirit prevents our grasp of their mystery. Yet without mastery of the Two we cannot gain the rest, for Kevin, wise to the hazards of unready knowledge and power, hid his Wards each in its turn, so that the comprehension of one would lead to the discovery of the next.

"For forty years, this failure has clung to us. And now we have learned that Lord Foul, too, has not been idle. We have learned from this Waynhim. The Land's enemy has grown power and armies until the region beyond the Shattered Hills teems with warped life-myriads of poor bent creatures like dukkha , held by the power of the Stone in soul chattelry to Lord Foul. He has built for himself a force more ill than any the Land has known, more fell than any we can hope to conquer. He has gathered his three Ravers, the servants of his right hand, to command his armies. It may be that his hordes are already afoot against us.

“So it is that we have called you, ur-Lord Covenant, Unbeliever and white gold wielder. You are our hope at the last. We summoned you, though we knew it might carry a cost hard for you to bear. We have sworn our service to the Land, and could not do otherwise. Thomas Covenant! Will you not help us?”

During her speech, her voice had grown in power and eloquence until she was almost singing. Covenant could not refuse to listen. Her tone reached into him, and made vivid all his memories of the Land's beauty. He recalled the bewitching Dance of the Celebration of Spring, and the lush, heart-soothing health of the Andelainian Hills, the uneasy eldritch gleaming of Morinmoss, the stern swift Plains of Ra and the rampant Ranyhyn, the great horses. And he remembered what it was like to feel, to have lively nerves in his fingers, capable of touching grass and stone. The poignancy of it made his heart ache.

“Your hope misleads you,” he groaned into the stillness after Elena's appeal. “I don't know anything about power. It has something to do with life, and I'm as good as dead. Or what do you think life is? Life is feeling. I've lost that. I'm a leper.”

He might have started to rage again, but a new voice cut sharply through his protest. “Then why don't you throw away your ring?”

He turned, and found himself confronting the warrior who had been sitting at the end of the Lords' table. The man had come down to the bottom of the Close, where he faced Covenant with his hands on his hips. To Covenant's surprise, the man's eyes were covered with dark, wraparound sunglasses. Behind the glasses, his head moved alertly, as if he were studying everything. He seemed to possess a secret. Without the support of his eyes, the slight smile on his lips looked private and unfathomable, like an utterance in an alien tongue.

Covenant grasped the inconsistency of the sunglasses-they were oddly out of place in the Close but he was too stung by the speaker's question to stop for discrepancies. Stiffly, he answered, “It's my wedding ring.”

The man shrugged away this reply. “You talk about your wife in the past tense. You're separated-or divorced. You can't have your life both ways now. Either get rid of the ring and stick to whatever it is you seem to think is real, or get rid of her and do your duty here.”

“My duty?” The affront of the man's judgment gave Covenant the energy to object. “How do you know what my duty is?”

“My name is Hile Troy.” The man gave a slight bow. “I'm the Warmark of the Warward of Lord's Keep. My job is to figure out how to meet Foul's army.”

“Rile Troy,” added Elena slowly, almost hesitantly, “comes from your world, Unbeliever.”

What?

The High Lord's assertion seemed to snatch the ground from under Covenant. The enervation in his bones suddenly swamped him. Vertigo came over him as if he were on the edge of a cliff, and he stumbled.

Mhoram caught him as he dropped heavily to his knees.

His movement distracted the Bloodguard holding dukkha . Before they could react, the Waynhim broke away from them and sprang at Covenant, screaming with fury.

To save Covenant, Mhoram spun and blocked dukkha 's charge with his staff. The next instant, the Bloodguard recaptured the Waynhim. But Covenant did not see it. When Mhoram turned away from him, he fell on his face beside the graveling pit. He felt weak, overburdened with despair, as if he were bleeding to death. For a few moments, he lost consciousness.