The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War (21 page)

“I am not a Bloodguard,” Mhoram returned calmly. “I need sleep like other men.”

“What have you figured out? Do you know what this thing is good for? What was that Amok business about?”

Mhoram gazed at Covenant across the krill, then smiled softly. “Will you sit down, my friend? You will hear long answers more comfortably if you ease your weariness.”

“I’m not tired,” the Unbeliever said with obvious falseness. The next moment, he dropped straight into a chair. Mhoram took a seat, and when he sat down he found that Covenant had positioned himself directly across the table, so that the krill stood between their faces. This arrangement disturbed Mhoram, but he could think of no other way to help Covenant than to listen and talk, so he stayed where he was, and focused his other senses to search for what was blocked from his sight by the gem of the krill.

“No, I do not comprehend Loric’s sword-and I cannot draw it from the table. I might free it by breaking the stone, but that would serve no purpose. We would gain no knowledge-only a weapon we could not touch. If the krill were free, it would not help us.

It is a power altogether new to us. We do not know its uses. And we do not like to break wood or stone, for any purpose.

“As to Amok-that is an open question. Lord Amatin could answer better.”

“I’m asking you.”

“It is possible,” Mhoram. said steadily, “that he was created by Kevin to defend against the krill itself. Perhaps the power here is so perilous that in unwise hands, or ignorant hands, it would do great harm. If that is true, then it may be that Amok’s purpose is to warn us from any unready use of this power, and to guide our learning.”

“You shouldn’t sound so plausible when you say things like that. That isn’t right.

Didn’t you hear what he said? ‘I have misserved my purpose.”’

“Perhaps he knows that if we are too weak to bring the krill to life, we are powerless to use it in any way, for good or ill.”

“All right. Forget it. Just forget that this is something else I did to you without any idea what in hell I was doing. Let it stand. What makes you think that good old Kevin Landwaster who started all this anyway is lurking in back of everything that happens to you like some kind of patriarch, making sure you don’t do the wrong thing and blow yourselves to bits? No, forget it. I know better than that, even if I have spent only a few weeks going crazy over this and not forty years like the rest of you. Tell me this. What’s so special about Kevin’s Lore? Why are you so hot to follow it? If you need power, why don’t you go out and find it for yourselves, instead of wasting whole generations of perfectly decent people on a bunch of incomprehensible Wards? In the name of sanity, Mhoram, if not for the sake of mere pragmatic usefulness.”

“Ur-Lord, you surpass me. I hear you, and yet I am left as if I were deaf or blind.”

“I don’t care about that. Tell me why.”

“It is not difficult-the matter is clear. The Earthpower is here, regardless of our mastery or use. The Land is here. And the banes and the evil-the Illearth Stone, the Despiser-are here, whether or not we can defend against them.

“Ah, how shall I speak of it? At times, my friend, the most simple, clear matters are the most difficult to utter.” He paused for a moment to think. But through the silence he felt an upsurge of agitation from Covenant, as if the Unbeliever were clinging to the words between them, and could not bear to have them withdrawn. Mhoram began to speak again, though he did not have his answer framed to his satisfaction.

“Consider it in this way. The study of Kevin’s knowledge is the only choice we can accept. Surely you will understand that we cannot expect the Earth to speak to us, as it did to Berek Halfhand. Such things do not happen twice. No matter how great our courage, or how imposing our need, the Land will not be saved that way again. Yet the Earthpower remains, to be used in Landservice-if we are able. But that Power-all poweris dreadful. It does not preserve itself from harm, from wrong use. As you say, we might strive to master the Earthpower in our own way. But the risk forbids.

“Ur-Lord, we have sworn an Oath of Peace which brooks no compromise.

Consider-forgive me, my friend, but I must give you a clear example — consider the fate of Atiaran Trell-mate. She dared powers which were beyond her, and was destroyed. Yet the result could have been far worse. She might have destroyed others, or hurt the Land.

How could we, the Lords we who have sworn to uphold all health and beauty how could we justify such hazards?

“No, we must work in other ways. If we are to gain the power to defend the Earth, and yet not endanger the Land itself, we must be the masters of what we do. And it was for this purpose that Lord Kevin created his Wards-so that those who came after him could hold power wisely.”

“Oh, right!” Covenant snapped. “Look at the good it did him. Hellfire! Even supposing you’re going to have the luck or the brains or even the chance to find all Seven Wards and figure them out, what bloody damnation! — what’s going to happen when dear, old, dead Kevin finally lets you have the secret of the Ritual of Desecration? And it’s your last chance to stop Foul in a war again! How’re you going to rationalize that to the people who’ll have to start from scratch a thousand years from now because you just couldn’t get out of repeating history? Or do you think that when the crisis comes you’re somehow going to do a better job than Kevin did?”

He spoke coldly, rapidly, but a smudged undercurrent in his voice told Mhoram that he was not talking about what was uppermost in his mind. He seemed to be putting the Lord through a ritual of questions, testing him. Mhoram responded carefully, hoping for Covenant’s sake that he would not make a mistake.

“We know the peril now. We have known it since the Giants returned the First Ward to us. Therefore we have sworn the Oath of Peace — and will keep it so that never again will life and Land be harmed by despair. If we are brought to the point where we must desecrate or be defeated, then we will fight until we are defeated. The fate of the Earth will be in other hands.”

“Which I’m doing nothing but make difficult for you. Just having this white gold raises prospects of eradication that never occurred to you before-not to mention the fact that it’s useless. Before this there wasn’t enough power around to make it even worth your while to worry about despair, since you couldn’t damage the Land if you wanted to. But now Foul might get my ring-or I might use it against you-but it’ll never save you.”

Covenant’s hands twitched on the table as if he were fumbling, for something. His fingers knotted together, tensed, then sprang apart to grope separately, aimlessly. “All right. Forget that, too. I’m coming to that. How in the name of all the gods are you going to fight a war-a war, Mhoram, not just fencing around with a bunch of Cavewights and urviles! When everyone you’ve got who’s tall enough to hold a sword has sworn this Oath of Peace? Or are there special dispensations like fine print in your contracts exempting wars from moral strictures or even the simple horror of blood?”

It was in Mhoram’s heart to tell Covenant that he went too far. But the fumbling, graspless jerks of his hands-one maimed, the other carrying his ring like a fetter-told Mhoram that the affront of the Unbeliever’s language was directed inward at himself, not at the Lords or the Land. This perception increased Mhoram’s concern, and again he replied with steady dignity.

“My friend, killing is always to be abhorred. It is a measure of our littleness that we cannot evade it. But I must remind you of a few matters. You have heard Berek’s Code-it is part of our Oath. It commands us:

Do not hurt where holding is enough;

do not wound where hurting is enough;

do not maim where wounding is enough;

and kill not where maiming is enough;

the greatest warrior is he who does not need to kill.

And you have heard High Lord Prothall say that the Land would not be served by angry bloodshed. There he touched upon the heart of the Oath. We will do all that might or mastery permits to defend the Land from Despite. But we will do nothing-to the Land, to our foes, to each other-which is commanded to us by our hearts’ black passions or pain or lust for death. Is this not clear to you, ur-Lord? If we must fight and, yes, kill, then our only defense and vindication is to fight so that we do not become like our Enemy. Here Kevin Landwaster failed-he was weakened by that despair which is the Despiser’s strength.

“No, we must fight-if only to preserve ourselves from watching the evil, as Kevin watched and was undone. But if we harm each other, or the Land, or hate our foes-ah, there will be no dawn to the night of that failure.”

“That’s sophistry.”

“Sophistry? I do not know this word.”

“Clever arguments to finance what you’ve already decided to do. Rationalizations.

War in the name of

Peace. As if when you poke your sword into a foe you aren’t slicing up ordinary flesh and blood that has as much right to go on living as you do.”

“Then do you truly believe that there is no difference between fighting to destroy the Land and fighting to preserve it?”

“Difference? What has that got to do with it? It’s still killing. But never mind.

Forget that, too. You’re doing too good a job. If I can’t pick holes in your answers any better than this, I’m going to end up — ” His hands began to shake violently, and he snatched them out of sight, shoved them below the table. “I’ll end up freezing to death, that’s what.”

Slumped back in his chair, Covenant fell into an aching silence. Mhoram felt the pressure between them build, and decided that the time had come to ask questions of his own. Breathing to himself the Seven Words, he said kindly, “You are troubled, my friend.

The High Lord is difficult to refuse, is she not?”

“So?” Covenant snapped. But a moment later, he groaned, “Yes. Yes, she is. But that isn’t it. The whole Land is difficult to refuse. I’ve felt that way from the beginning.

That isn’t it.” After a tense pause, he went on: “Do you know what she did to me yesterday? She took me upland to see that Unfettered One -the man who claims to understand dreams. I was there for a day or more- But you’re the seer and oracle-I don’t have to tell you about him. You’ve probably gone up there yourself more than anyone, else, couldn’t help it, if only because mere ordinary human ears can only stand to hear so much contempt and laughter and no more, regardless of whether you’re asleep or not. So you know what it’s like. You know how he latches onto you with those eyes, and holds you down, and dissects- But you’re the seer and oracle. You probably even know what he said to me.”

“No,” Mhoram replied quietly.

“He said- Hellfire!” He shook his head as if he were dashing water from his eyes.

“He said that I dream the truth. He said that I am very fortunate. He said that people with such dreams are the true enemies of Despite it isn’t Law, the Staff of Law wasn’t made to fight Foul with-no, it’s wild magic and dreams that are the opposite of Despite.” For an instant, the air around him quivered with indignation. “He also said that I don’t believe it.

That was a big help. I just wish I knew whether I am a hero or a coward.

“No, don’t answer that. It isn’t up to you.”

Lord Mhoram smiled to reassure Covenant, but the Unbeliever was already continuing, “Anyway, I’ve got a belief-for what it’s worth. It just isn’t exactly the one you people want me to have.”

Probing again, Mhoram said, “That may be. But I do not see it. You do not show us belief, but Unbelief. If this is believing, then it is not belief for, but rather belief against.”

Covenant jumped to his feet as if he had been stung. “I deny that! Just because I don’t affirm the Land or whatever, carry on like some unraveled fanatic and foam at the mouth for a chance to fight like Troy does, doesn’t mean assuming that there’s some kind of justice in the labels and titles which you people spoon around-assuming you can put a name at all to this gut-broken whatever that I can’t even articulate much less prove to myself. That is not what Unbelief means.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means — ” For a moment, Covenant stopped, choking on the words as if his heart suffered some blockage. Then he reached forward and shaded the gem of the krill with his hands so that it did not shine in his eyes. In a voice suddenly. and terribly suffused with the impossibility of any tears which would have eased him, he shouted, “It means I’ve got to withhold -to discount-to keep something for myself! Because I don’t know why!” The next instant, he dropped back into his chair and bowed his head, hiding it in his arms as if he were ashamed.

” Why?” Mhoram said softly. “That is not so hard a matter here, thus distant from

‘how.’ Some of our legends hint at one answer. They tell of the beginning of the Earth, in a time soon after the birth of Time,

when the Earth’s Creator found that his brother and Enemy, the Despiser, had marred his creation by placing banes of surpassing evil deep within it. In outrage and pain, the Creator cast his Enemy down-out of the universal heavens onto the Earth-and emprisoned him here within the arch of Time. Thus, as the legends tell it, Lord Foul came to the Land.”

As he spoke, he felt that he was not replying to Covenant’s question-that the question had a direction he could not see. But he continued, offering Covenant the only answer he possessed.

“It is clear now that Lord Foul lusts to strike back at his brother, the Creator. And at last, after ages of bootless wars carried on out of malice, out of a desire to harm the creation because he could not touch the Creator, Lord Foul has found a way to achieve his end, to destroy the arch of Time, unbind his exile, and return to his forbidden home, for spite and woe. When the Staff of Law, lost by Kevin at the Desecration, came within his influence, he gained a chance to bridge the gap between worlds-a chance to bring white gold into the Land.

“I tell you simply: it is Lord Foul’s purpose to master the wild magic-‘the anchor of the arch of life that spans and masters Time’-and with it bring Time to an end, so that he may escape his bondage and carry his lust throughout the universe. To do this, he must defeat you, must wrest the white gold from you. Then all the Land and all the Earth will surely fall.”