Momentarily, Prothall and Birinair met each other's eyes as if they were trying to exchange some knowledge that could not be voiced. Then Birinair shook himself free. Looking about him as if he could see the shards of his dignity scattered around his feet, he mumbled gruffly, “Stand on my own. Not that old yet.” After a glance at Covenant, he went on more loudly, “You think I am old. Of course. Old and foolish. Push himself into a Quest when he should be resting his bones by the hearth. Like a lump.” Pointing toward the Unbeliever, he concluded, “Ask him. Ask.”
Covenant had climbed to his feet while the attention of the company was on the Hirebrand, and had pushed his hands into his pockets to hide the hue of his ring. As Birinair pointed at him, he raised his eyes from the ground. A sick feeling of presage twisted his stomach as he remembered his attacks in Andelain, and what had followed them.
Prothall said firmly, “Step there again, ur-Lord.”
Grimacing, Covenant strode forward and stamped his foot on the spot. As his heel hit the ground, he winced in expectation, tried to brace himself for the sensation that at this one point the earth had become insecure, foundationless. But nothing stung him. As in Andelain, the ill had vanished, leaving him with the impression that a veneer of trustworthiness had been replaced over a pit.
In answer to the silent question of the Lords, he shook his head.
After a pause, Mhoram said evenly, “You have felt this before.”
With an effort, Covenant forced himself to say, “Yes. Several times- in Andelain. Before that attack on the Celebration.”
“The hand of the Grey Slayer touched you,” Birinair spat. But he could not sustain his accusation. His bones seemed to remember their age, and ire sagged tiredly, leaned on his staff. In an odd tone of self reproach, as if he were apologizing, he mumbled, “Of course. Younger. If I were younger.” He tamed from the company and shuffled away to his iced beyond the circle.
“Why did you not tell us?” Mhoram asked severely.
The question made Covenant feel suddenly ashamed, as if his ring were visible through the fabric of his pants. His shoulders hunched, drove his hands deeper into his pockets. “I didn't- at first I didn't want you to know what- how important Foul and Drool think I am. After that”-he referred to his crisis in the Close with his eyes- “I was thinking about other Mhoram accepted this with a nod, and after a moment Covenant went on: “I don't know what it is. But I only get it through my boots. I can't touch it- with my hands or my feet.”
Mhoram and Prothall shared a glance of surprise. Shortly, the High Lord said, “Unbeliever, the cause if these attacks surpasses me. Why do your boots make you sensitive to this wrong? I do not know. But either Lord Mhoram or myself must remain by you at all times, so that we may respond without delay.” Over his shoulder, he said, “First Mark Tuvor. Warhaft Quaan. Have you heard?”
Quaan came to attention and replied, “Yes, High Lord.” And from behind the circle Tuvor's voice carried softly, “There will be an attack. We have heard.”
“Readiness will be needed,” said Mhoram grimly, “and stout hearts to face an onslaught of ur-viles and wolves and Cavewights without faltering.”
“That is so,” the High Lord said at last. “But such things will come in their own time. Now we must rest. We must gather strength.”
Slowly, the company began the business of bedding down. Humming his Giantish plainsong, Foamfollower stretched out on the ground with his arm around his leather flask of
diamondraught
. While the Bloodguard set watches, the warriors spread blankets for themselves and the Lords. Covenant went to bed self consciously, as if he felt the company studying him, and he was glad of the blankets that helped him hide his ring. Then he lay awake long into the night, feeling too cold to sleep; the blankets did not keep out the chill which emanated from his ring.
But until he finally fell asleep, he could hear Foam follower's humming and see Prothall sitting by the embers of the fire. The Giant and the High Lord kept watch together, two old friends of the Land sharing some vigil against their impending doom.
The next day dawned grey and cheerless- overcast with clouds like ashes in the sky- and into it Covenant rode bent in his saddle as if he had a weight around his neck. His ring had lost its red stain with the setting of the moon; but the colour remained in his mind, and the ring seemed to drag him down like a meaningless crime. Helplessly, he perceived that an allegiance he had not chosen, could not have chosen, was being forced upon him. The evidence seemed irrefutable. Like the moon, he was falling prey to Lord Foul's machinations. His volition was not required; the strings which dangled him were strong enough to overbear any resistance.
He did not understand how it could happen to him. Was his death wish, his leper's weariness or despair, so strong? What had become of his obdurate instinct for survival? Where was his anger, his violence? Had he been victimized for so long that now he could only respond as a victim, even to himself?
He had no answers. He was sure of nothing but the fear which came over him when the company halted at noon. He found that he did not want to get down from Dura's back.
He distrusted the ground, dreaded contact with it. He had lost a fundamental confidence: his faith that the earth was stable- a faith so obvious and constant and necessary that it had been unconscious until now- had been shaken. Blind silent soil had become a dark hand malevolently seeking out him and him alone.
Nevertheless, he swung down from the saddle, forced himself to set foot on the ground and was stung. The virulence of the sensation made all his nerves cringe, and he could hardly stand as he watched Prothall and Mhoram and Birinair try to capture what he had felt. But they failed completely; the misery of that ill touch withdrew the instant he jumped away from it.
That evening during supper he was stung again. When he went to bed to hide his ring from the moon, he shivered as if he were feverish. On the morning of the sixth day, he arose with a grey face and a crippled look in his eyes. Before he could mount Nomura he was stung again.
And again during one of the company's rest halts.
And again the instant he mustered enough despair to dismount at the end of the day's ride. The wrong felt like another spike in his coffin lid. This time, his nerves reacted so violently that he tumbled to the ground like a demonstration of futility. He had to lie still for a long time before he could coax his arms and legs under control again, and when he finally regained feet, he jerked and winced with fear at every step.
Pathetic, pathetic, he panted to himself. But he could not find the rage to master it.
With keen concern in his eyes, Foamfollower asked him why he did not take off his boots. Covenant had to think for a moment before he could remember why. Then he murmured, “They're part of me- they're part of the way I have to live. I don't have very many parts left. And besides,” he added wanly, “if I don't keep having these fits, how is Prothall going to figure them out?”
“Do not do such a thing for us,” Mhoram replied intently. “How could we ask it?”
But Covenant only shrugged and went to sit by the fire. He could not face food that night- the thought of eating made his raw nerves nauseous- but he tried a few
aliantha
from a bush near the camp, and found that they had a calming effect. He ate a handful of the berries, absentmindedly tossing away the seeds as Lena had taught him, and returned to the fire.
When the company had finished its meal, Mhoram seated himself beside Covenant. Without looking at him, the Lord asked, “How can we help you? Should we build a litter so that you will not have to touch the earth? Or are there other ways? Perhaps one of Foamfollower's tales would ease your heart. I have heard Giants boast that the Despiser himself would become an Earthfriend if he could be made to listen to the story of Bahgoon the Unbearable and Thelma Twofist- such healing there is in stories.” Abruptly, Mhoram turned squarely toward Covenant, and Covenant saw that the Lord's face was full of sympathy. “I see your pain, ur-Lord.”
Covenant hung his head to avoid Mhoram's gaze, made sure his left hand was securely in his pocket. After a moment, he said distantly, “Tell me about the Creator.”
“Ah,” Mhoram sighed, “we do not know that a Creator lives. Our only lore of such a being comes from the most shadowy reaches of our oldest legends. We know the Despiser. But the Creator we do not know.”
Then Covenant was vaguely startled to hear Lord Tamarantha cut in, “Of course we know. Ah, the folly of the young. Mhoram my son, you are not yet a prophet. You must learn that kind of courage.” Slowly, she pulled her ancient limbs together and got to her feet, leaning on her staff for support. Her thin white hair hung in wisps about her face as she moved into the circle around the fire, muttering frailty, “Oracles and prophecy are incompatible. According to Kevin's Lore, only Heartthew the Lord-Fatherer was both seer and prophet. Lesser souls lose the paradox. Why, I do not know. But when Kevin Landwaster decided in his heart to invoke the Ritual of Desecration, he saved the Bloodguard and the Ranyhyn and the Giants because he was an oracle. And because he was no prophet he failed to see that Lord Foul would survive. A lesser man than Berek. Of course the Creator lives.”
She looked over at Variol for confirmation, and he nodded, but Covenant could not tell whether he was approving or drowsing. But Tamarantha nodded in return as if Variol had supported her. Lifting her head to the night sky and the stars, she spoke in a voice fragile with age.
“Of course the Creator lives,” she repeated. "How else? Opposites require each other. Otherwise the difference is lost, and only chaos remains. No, there can be no Despite without Creation. Better to ask how the Creator could have forgotten that when he made the Earth. For if he did not forget, then Creation and Despite existed together in his one being, and he did not know it.
“This the elder legends tell us: into the infinity before Time was made came the Creator like a worker into his workshop. And since it is the nature of creating to desire perfection, the Creator devoted all himself to the task. First he built the arch of Time, so that his creation would have a place in which to beard for the keystone of that arch he forged the wild magic, so that Time would be able to resist chaos and endure. Then within the arch he formed the Earth. For ages he laboured, formed and unformed, trialled and tested and rejected and trialled and tested again, so that when he was done his creation would have no cause to reproach him. And when the Earth was fair to his eye, he gave birth to the inhabitants of the Earth, beings to act out in their lives his reach for perfection- and he did not neglect to give them the means to strive for perfection themselves. When he was done, he was proud as only those who create can be.
“Alas, he did not understand Despite, or had forgotten it. He undertook his task thinking that perfect labour was all that he required to create perfection. But when he was done, and his pride had tasted its first satisfaction, he looked closely at the Earth, thinking to gratify himself with the sight- and he was dismayed. For, behold! Buried deep in the Earth through no will or forming of his were banes of destruction, powers virile enough to rip his masterwork into dust.
“Then he understood or remembered. Perhaps he found Despite itself beside him, misguiding his hand. Or perhaps he saw the harm in himself. It does not matter. He became outraged with grief and torn pride. In his fury he wrestled with Despite, either within him or without, and in his fury he cast the Despiser down, out of the infinity of the cosmos onto the Earth.
“Alas! thus the Despiser was emprisoned within Time. And thus the Creator's creation became the Despiser's world, to torment as he chose. For the very Law of Time, the principle of power which made the arch possible, worked to preserve Lord Foul, as we now call him. That Law requires that no act may be undone. Desecration may not be undone- defilement may not be recanted. It may be survived or healed, but not denied. Therefore Lord Foul has afflicted the Earth, and the Creator cannot stop him- for it was the Creator's act which placed Despite here.
“In sorrow and humility, the Creator saw what he had done. So that the plight of the Earth would not be utterly without hope, he sought to help his creation in indirect ways. He guided the Lord-Fatherer to the fashioning of the Staff of Law- a weapon against Despite. But the very Law of the Earth's creation permits nothing more. If the Creator were to silence
Lord Foul, that act would destroy Time- and then the Despiser would be free in infinity again, free to make whatever befoulments he desired.”
Tamarantha paused. She had told her tale simply, without towering rhetoric or agitation or any sign of passion beyond her agedness. But for a moment, her thin old voice convinced Covenant that the universe was at stake- that his own struggle was only a microcosm of a far larger conflict. During that moment, he waited in suspense for what she would say next.
Shortly, she lowered her head and turned her wrinkled gaze full on him. Almost whispering, she said, “Thus we are come to the greatest test. The wild magic is here. With a word our world could be riven to the core. Do not mistake,” she quavered. “If we cannot win this Unbeliever to our cause, then the Earth will end in rubble.” But Covenant could not tell whether her voice shook because she was old, or because she was afraid.