The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War (16 page)

“That is well,” said Verement. “Perhaps one day the whole army of the Despiser will appear unnoticed at our gates, and we will still be sleeping when Revelstone falls.”

He was about to say more, but Elena interposed firmly, “Bring the stranger now.”

As the Bloodguard at the top of the stairs swung open the high wooden doors, Amatin asked the High Lord, “Does this stranger come at your request?”

“No. But I do now wish to question him.”

Covenant watched as two more Bloodguard came into the Close with the stranger between them. He was slim, simply clad in a cream-colored robe, and his movements were light, buoyant. Though he was nearly

as tall as Covenant, he seemed hardly old enough to have his full growth. There was a sense of boyish laughter in the way his curly hair bounced as he came down the steps, as if he were amused by the precautions taken against him. But Covenant was not amused. With the new dimension of his sight, he could see why Growl had said that the boy was “not as other men.” Within his young, fresh flesh were bones that seemed to radiate oldness-not age-they were not weak or infirm-but rather antiquity. His skeleton carried this oldness, this aura of time, as if he were merely a vessel for it. He existed for it rather than in spite of it. The sight baffled Covenant’s perceptions, made his eyes ache with conflicting impressions of dread and glory as he strained to comprehend.

When the boy reached the floor of the Close, he stepped near to the graveling pit, and made a cheerful obeisance. In a high, young voice, he exclaimed, “Hail, High Lord!”

Elena stood and replied gravely, “Stranger, be welcome in the Land-welcome and true. We are the Lords of Revelstone, and I am Elena daughter of Lena, High Lord by the choice of the Council, and holder of the Staff of Law. How may we honor you?”

“Courtesy is like a drink at a mountain stream. I am honored already.”

“Then will you honor us in turn with your name?”

With a laughing glance, the boy said, “It may well come to pass that I will tell you who I am.”

“Do not game with us,” Verement cut in. “What is your name?”

“Among those who do not know me, I am named Amok.”

Elena controlled Verement with a swift look, then said to the youth, “And how are you named among those who know you?”

“Those who know me have no need of my name.”

“Stranger, we do not know you” An edge came into her quiet voice. “These are times of great peril in the Land, and we can spend neither time nor delicacy with you. We require to know who you are.”

“Ah, then I fear I cannot help you,” replied Amok with an impervious gaiety in his eyes.

For a moment, the Lords met his gaze with stiff silence. Verement’s thin lips whitened; Callindrill frowned thoughtfully; and Elena faced the boy with low anger flushing her cheeks, though her eyes did not lose their odd, dislocated focus. Then Lord Amatin straightened her shoulders and said, “Amok, where is your home? Who are your parents? What is your past?”

Lightly, Amok turned and gave her an unexpected bow. “My home is Revelstone.

I have no parents. And my past is both wide and narrow, for I have wandered everywhere, waiting.”

A surge ran through the Council, but no one interrupted Amatin. Studying the boy, she said, “Your home is Revelstone? How can that be? We have no knowledge of you.”

“Lord, I have been away. I have feasted with the Elohim, and ridden Sandgorgons. I have danced with the Dancers of the Sea, and teased brave Kelenbhrabanal in his grave, and traded apothegms with the Gray Desert. I have waited.”

Several of the Lords stirred, and a gleam came into Loerya’s eyes, as if she recognized something potent in Amok’s words. They all watched him closely as Amatin said, “Yet everything that lives has ancestry, forebearers of its own kind. Amok, what of your parentage?”

“Do I live?”

“It appears not,” Verement growled. “Nothing mortal would try our patience so.”

“Peace, Verement,” said Loerya. “There is grave import here.” Without taking her eyes off Amok, she asked, “Are you alive?”

“Perhaps. While I have purpose, I move and speak. My eyes behold. Is this life?”

His answer confused Lord Amatin. Thinly, as if her uncertainty pained her, she said, “Amok, who made your”

Without hesitation, Amok replied, “High Lord

Kevin son of Loric son of Damelon son of Berek Heartthew the Lord-Fatherer.”

A silent clap of surprise echoed in the Close. Around the table, the Lords gaped in astonishment. Then Verement smacked the stone with the flat of his hand, and barked,

“By the Seven! This whelp mocks us.

“I think not,” answered Elena.

Lord Mhoram nodded wearily, and sighed his agreement. “Our ignorance mocks us.”

Quickly, Trevor asked, “Mhoram, do you know Amok? Have you seen him?”

Lord Loerya seconded the question, but before Mhoram could gather his strength to respond, Lord Callindrill leaned forward to ask, “Amok, why were you made? What purpose do you serve?”

“I wait,” said the boy. “And I answer.”

Callindrill accepted this with a glum nod, as if it proved an unfortunate point, and said nothing more. After a pause, the High Lord said to Amok, “You bear knowledge, and release it in response to the proper questions. Have I understood you aright?”

In answer, Amok bowed, shaking his head so that his gay hair danced like laughter about his head.

“What knowledge is this?” she inquired.

“Whatever knowledge you can ask for, and receive answer.”

At this, Elena glanced ruefully around the table. “Well, that at least was not the proper question,” she sighed. “I think we will need to know Amok’s knowledge before we can ask the proper questions:”

Mhoram looked at her and nodded.

“Excellent!” Verement’s retort was full of suppressed ferocity. “So ignorance increases ignorance, and knowledge makes itself unnecessary.”

Covenant felt the force of Verement’s sarcasm. But Lord Amatin ignored it.

Instead, she asked the youth, “Why have you come to us now?”

“I felt the sign of readiness. The krill of Loric came to life. That is the appointed word. I answer as I was made to do.”

As he mentioned the krill, Amok’s inner cradled glory and dread seemed to become more visible. The sight gave Covenant a pang. Is this my fault, too? he groaned.

What have I gotten myself into now? But the glimpse was mercifully brief; Amok’s boyish good humor soon veiled it again.

When it was past, Lord Mhoram climbed slowly to his feet, supporting himself on his staff like an old man. Standing beside the High Lord as if he were speaking for her, he said, “Then you have- Amok, hear me. I am seer and oracle for this Council. I speak words of vision. I have not seen you. You have come too soon. We did not give life to the krill. That was not our doing. We lack the lore for such work.”

Amok’s face became suddenly grave, almost frightened, showing for the first time some of the antiquity of his skull. “Lack the lore? Then I have erred. I have misserved my purpose. I must depart; I will do great harm else.”

Quickly, he turned, slipped with deceptive speed between the Bloodguard, and darted up the stairs.

When he was halfway to the doors, everyone in the Close lost sight of him. He vanished as if they had all taken their eyes off him for an instant, allowing him to hide.

The Lords jumped to their feet in amazement. On the stairs, the pursuing Bloodguard halted, looked rapidly about them, and gave up the chase.

“Swiftly!” Elena commanded. “Search for him! Find him!”

“What is the need?” Crowl replied flatly. “He is gone.”

“That I see! But where has he gone? Perhaps he is still in Revelstone.”

But Crowl only repeated, “He is gone.” Something in his certitude reminded Covenant of Bannor’s subdued, unusual excitement. Are they in this together? he asked himself. My purpose? The words repeated dimly in his mind. My purpose?

Through his mystification, he almost did not hear Troy whisper, “I thought-for a minute-I thought I saw him.”

High Lord Elena paid no attention to the Warmark. The attitude of the Bloodguard seemed to baffle her, and she sat down to consider the situation. Slowly, she spread about her the melding of the Council, one by one bringing the minds of the other Lords into communion with her own. Callindrill shut his eyes, letting a look of peace spread over his face, and Trevor and Loerya held hands. Verement shook his head two or three times, then acquiesced when Mhoram touched him gently on the shoulder.

When they all were woven together, the High Lord said, “Each of us must study this matter. War is near at hand, and we must not be taken unaware by such mysteries.

But to you, Lord Amatin, I give the chief study of Amok and his secret knowledge. If it can be done, we must seek him out and learn his answers.”

Lord Amatin nodded with determination in her small face.

Then, like an unclasping of mental hands, the melding ended, and an intensity which Covenant could sense but not join faded from the air. In silence, the Lords took up their staffs, and began to leave.

“Is that it?” Covenant muttered in surprise. “Is that all you’re going to do?”

“Watch it, Covenant,” Troy warned softly.

Covenant shot a glare at the Warmark, but his black sunglasses seemed to make him impervious. Covenant turned toward the High Lord. “Is that all?” he insisted. “Don’t you even want to know what’s going on here?”

Elena faced him levelly. “Do you know?”

“No. Of course not.” He wanted to add, to protest, But Bannor does. But that was something else he could not say. He had no right to make the Bloodguard responsible.

Stiffly, he remained silent.

“Then do not be too quick to judge,” Elena replied. “There is much here that requires explanation, and we must seek answers in our own way if we hope to be prepared.”

Prepared for what? he wanted to ask. But he lacked the resolution to challenge the High Lord; he was afraid of her eyes. To escape the situation, he brushed past Bannor and horned out of the Close ahead of the Lords and Troy.

But back in his rooms he found no relief for his frustration. And in the days that followed, nothing happened to give him any relief. Elena, Mhoram, and Troy were as absent from his life as if they were deliberately avoiding him. Bannor answered his aimless questions courteously, curtly, but the answers shed no light. His beard grew until it was thick and full, and made him look to himself like an unraveled fanatic; but it proved nothing, solved nothing. The full of the moon came and went, but the war did not begin; there arrived no word from the scouts, no signs, no insights. Around him, Revelstone palpably trembled in the clench of its readiness; everywhere he went, he heard whispers of tension, haste, urgency, but no action was taken. Nothing. He roamed for leagues in Lord’s Keep as if he were treading a maze. He drank inordinate quantities of springwine, and slept the sleep of the dead as if he hoped that he would never be resurrected. At times he was even reduced to standing on the northern battlements of the city to watch Troy and Quaan drill the Warward. But nothing happened.

His only oasis in this static and frustrated wilderland was given to him by Lord Callindrill and his wife, Faer. One day, Callindrill took the Unbeliever to his private quarters beyond the floor-lit courtyard, and there Faer provided him with a meal which almost made him forget his plight. She was a hale Stonedownor woman with a true gift for hospitality. Perhaps he would have been able to forget-but she studied the old suru-pa-maerl craft, as Lena had done, and that evoked too many painful memories in him. He did not visit long with Faer and her husband.

Yet before he left, Callindrill had explained to him some of the oddness of his current position in Revelstone. The High Lord had summoned him, Callindrill said, when the Council had agreed that the war could begin at any moment, when any further postponement of the call might prove fatal. But Warmark Troy’s battle plans could not be launched until he knew which of two possible assault routes Lord Foul’s army would take. Until the Warmark received clear word from his scouts, he could not afford to commit his Eowards. If he risked a guess, and guessed wrong, disaster would result. So Covenant had been urgently summoned, and yet now was left to himself, with no demands upon him.

In addition, the Lord went on, there was another reason why he had been summoned at a time which now appeared to have been premature. Warmark Troy had argued urgently for the summons. This surprised Covenant until Callindrill explained Troy’s reasoning. The Warmark had believed that Lord Foul would be able to detect the summons. So by means of Covenant’s call Troy had hoped to put pressure on the Despiser, force him, because of his fear of the wild magic, to launch his attack before he was ready. Time favored Lord Foul because his war resources far surpassed those of the Council, and if he prepared long enough he might well field an army that no Warward could defeat. Troy hoped that the ploy of summoning Covenant would make the Despiser cut his preparations short.

Lastly, Callindrill explained in a gentle voice, High Lord Elena and Lord Mhoram were in fact evading the Unbeliever. Covenant had not asked that question, but Callindrill seemed to divine some of the causes of his frustration. Elena and Mhoram, each in their separate ways, felt so involved in Covenant’s dilemma that they stayed away from him in order to avoid aggravating his distress. They sensed, said Callindrill, that he found their personal appeals more painful than any other. The possibility that he might go to Seareach had jolted Elena. And Mhoram was consumed by his work on the krill. Until the war bereft them of choice, they refrained as much as possible from imposing upon him.

Well, Troy warned me, Covenant muttered to himself as he left Callindrill and Faer. He said that they’re scrupulous. After a moment, he added sourly, I would be better off if all these people would stop trying to do me favors.

Yet he was grateful to Faer and her husband. Their companionly gestures helped him to get through the next few days, helped him to keep the vertiginous darkness at bay.

He felt that he was rotting inside, but he was not going mad.