Daughter of Regals (14 page)

Outside the manor, dawn
was breaking. When I had dismissed my Mage and counselor, I took on my other
form and went out into the world to make the acquaintance of my fellow
Creatures.

FOREWORD

GILDEN-FIRE is, in essence, an ‘out-take’ from
THE ILLEARTH WAR. For that reason, it is not a complete story. Rather, it
describes an episode which occurred to Korik of the Bloodguard and his mission
to Seareach during the early days of THE ILLEARTH WAR, after Thomas Covenant’s
summoning to the Land but before the commencement of the actual war. This
material survived through two drafts of the manuscript, but is entirely absent
from the published version of the book.

On that basis, I think it requires some
explanation. As a general rule, I use my out takes for wastepaper. But I’ve
made an exception In this case for a variety of reasons.

Some of them have to do with why
GILDEN-FIRE was taken out of THE ILLEARTH WAR in the first place. The version
of the manuscript which originally crossed the desk of Lester del Rey at
Ballantine Books was 916 pages long — roughly; 261,000 words— That was
manifestly too long. With much regret, Lester gave me to understand that I
would have to cut 250 pages.

Well, I’m a notorious over-writer; and I
was able to eliminate 100 pages simply by squeezing the prose with more than my
usual ruthlessness. But after that I had to make a more difficult decision.

As it happened, the original version of
THE ILLEARTH WAR was organized in four parts rather than the present three.
Part II in that version dealt exclusively with Korik’s mission to Seareach; and
it eventually provided me with the 150 pages of cuts I still needed. Not
because I considered the material to be of secondary importance (I have little
sympathy for anyone who considers the fate of the Unhomed, the fidelity of the
Bloodguard, and the valour of the Lords to be of secondary importance). On the
contrary, I was quite fond of that whole section. No, I put my axe to the roots
of my former Part II for reasons of narrative logic.

From the beginning, that section had been
a risky piece of writing. In it, I had used Korik as my viewpoint character.

For the first time in the trilogy, I had
stepped fully away from Thomas Covenant (or any direct link to the ‘real’
world). And that proved to be a mistake. It was crucial to the presentation of
Covenant’s character that he had some good reasons for doubting the substantial
‘reality’ of the Land. But all his reasons were undercut when I employed
someone like Korik — a character with no bond, however oblique, to Covenant’s
world — for a narrative centre. (THE ILLEARTH WAR does contain two chapters
from Lord Mhoram’s point of view. But in both cases Mhoram is constantly in the
company of either Covenant or Hile Troy. Korik’s mission lacked even that
connection to the central assumptions on which LORD FOUL’S BANE and THE
ILLEARTH WAR were based.) In using Korik as I had, I had informed the reader
that the people of the Land were in fact ‘real’: I had unintentionally denied
the logic of Covenant’s Unbelief. Which was already too fragile for its own
good.

Therefore I took the absolutely essential
sections of that Part II and recast them as reports which Runnik and Tull
brought back to Covenant and
Troy
— thus preserving the integrity of the
narrative perspective from which the story was being viewed. And in the process
I achieved the 150 pages of cuts I needed.

But all of GILDEN-FIRE was lost.

That does not exactly constitute high
tragedy. Cutting is part of writing; and narrative logic is more important than
authorial fondness. My point is simply that GILDEN-FIRE was cut, not because it
was bad, but because it didn’t fit well enough.

However, the question remains: if this. material
didn’t fit THE ILLEARTH WAR, why am I inflicting it upon the world now?

The main reason, I suppose, is my
aforementioned fondness. I like Korik, Hyrim, and Shetra, and have always
grieved over the exigency which required me to reduce their role in the story
so drastically. But, in addition, I’ve often felt that the moral dilemma of the
Bloodguard is somewhat obscure in the published version of my books; too much
of their back-ground was sacrificed when I cut GILDEN-FIRE. In fact, too much
development of the people who would eventually have to face the destruction of
the Unhomed was sacrificed. (How, for instance, can Lord Hyrim’s achievements
be fully understood when so little is known about him?) By publishing
GILDEN-FIRE, I’m trying to fill a subtle but real gap in THE ILLEARTH WAR.

Finally, I should say that I think the
logic which originally required me to cut out this material no longer applies.
Since it cannot stand on its own as an independent story, GILDEN-FIRE will
surely not be read by anyone unfamiliar with ‘The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
the Unbeliever’. And those readers know that the question of whether or not the
Land is ultimately real’ (whether or not a character like Korik is sufficiently
‘actual’ to serve as a narrative view-point) no longer matters. In reality as
in dreams, what matters is the answer we find in our hearts to the test of
Despite. By publishing GILDEN-FIRE, I hope to give more substance to the
answers Korik, Hyrim, and Shetra found.

GILDEN-FIRE

AS SUNRISE ECHOED the fire of farewell which
High Lord Elena had launched into the heavens from the watchtower of
Revelstone, Korik Bloodguard and his mission to Seareach wheeled their Ranyhyn,
tightened their resolve about them, and went running into the east.

With the new sun in his eyes, Korik could
not see clearly. Yet he moved comfortably to the rhythm of Brabha’s strides,
faced the prospect ahead without a qualm. He had been riding Brabha for nearly
fifty years now; but his experience of Ranyhyn was far longer than that: the
great horses of Ra by the score had borne him in turn, one after another as
their individual lives ended and their fidelity passed from generation to
generation. He knew that the Ranyhyn would not miss their footing. The terrain
near Revelstone was much-travelled and reliable; yet even in the cluttered
rigour of the Northron Climbs, or in the subtle deceptions of Sarangrave Flat,
the Ranyhyn would remain sure-footed. Their instincts were founded on something
more constant than the superficial details of hills and plains. They bore Korik’s
mission down through the foothills of Revelstone as confidently as if the great
horses were part of the ground itself — a part made  mobile and distinct by
their quicker life-pulse, but still sharing the same bone, the same ancestry,
so that no orphaning misstep or betrayal could occur between hoof and earth.

And around Korik rode his companions,
those who shared his mission to the Giants of Seareach: fourteen more
Bloodguard and two Lords, Hyrim son of Hoole, and Shetra Verement-mate. The
memory of their parting from the people of Revelstone — Shetra’s grief over her
separation from her un-Ranyhyn-chosen and self-doubting husband, Hyrim’s astute
attempts to probe the difference between what the Bloodguard remembered and
what they new, Thomas Covenant’s refusal to share this mission — was vivid to
Korik. But more vivid still was the urgent need which gave cause to this
journey. Summon or succour. A need so compulsory that it had been given into
his hands, to the Bloodguard themselves, rather than to the Lords, so that if
Hyrim or Shetra fell their defenders would go on.

For there had been a special timbre of
exigency in Terrel’s silent voice earlier that night as he had sent out his
call to First Mark Morin.

—Summon the High Lord, Terrel had said,
following a grim-eyed and haggard Lord Mhoram toward the Close. There is a
peril upon the Giants of Seareach. He has seen it.

Lord Mhoram had seen it. Seer and oracle
to the Council, he had described the death of the Unhomed stalking them across
all the leagues between Revelstone and
Coercri
— a death no more distant
than a score of days. When the High Lord and all the Council had gathered with
him in the Close, he had told them what he had seen. His vision had left them
grey with many kinds of dread.

In this Korik knew the Lords well.
With-out sleep or let, he had served the Council in all its manifestations for
two millennia: he knew that the pain in Hyrim and Callindrill and Mhoram, the
bitten hardness of Shetra and Verement, the wide alarm of the Lords Amatin, Loerya,
and Trevor arose from concern for the life-loving Unhomed — a concern as deep
as the. ancient friendship and fealty between the Giants and the Land. But
Korik also understood the other dreads. Corruption was mustering war against
the Council; and that jeopardy had become so imminent that only scant days ago
the High Lord had felt compelled to summon the Unbeliever from his unwilling
world. In such a need, all the eyes of the Land naturally turned toward
Seareach for assistance. And for three years there had been silence between the
Giants and Revelstone.

A year of silence was not unusual.
Therefore the first year had not been questioned. But the second gave birth to
anxiety, and so messengers were dispatched to Seareach. None of them returned.
In the third year, one Eoman was sent and not seen again. Unwilling to hazard
more of the Warward, the High Lord had then commanded the Lords Callindrill and
Amatin to carry word of the Land’s need eastward. But hey had been turned back
by Sarangrave Flat; and still the silence endured. Thus the Council had already
known fear for the Giants as well as for themselves. Lord Mhoram’s vision gave
that fear substance.

The High Lord did not hesitate to
conceive aid for the Giants. Summon or succour. But Corruption’s hordes were
believed to be marching for the Land’s ruin; and few warriors and little power
could be spared from the defence. So the mission was given to the Bloodguard. Given
by First Mark Morin to Korik by reason of his rank and years. And by the High
Lord to the Lords Hyrim and Shetra: Hyrim son of Hool, a corpulent, humorous,
and untried man with an avowed passion for all fleshly comforts and a silent
love of Giants; and Shetra Verement-mate, whose pain at her husband’s
self-doubt made her as bitter as the hawk she resembled. It was a small force
to hurl into the unknown path of Corruption’s malice. No Bloodguard required
reminder that there were only two roads to bear the Despiser westward one to
the south of Andelain, then northward against Revelstone; the other to the
north of Mount Thunder, then westward through Grimmerdhore Forest. And Korik’s
way toward Seareach also lay through Grimmerdhore.

However, the road of Corruption’s choice
was uncertain; and the Bloodguard did not pang themselves with uncertainties.
Korik and his people were not required by their Vow to know the unknown: they
were required only to succeed or die. It was not in that fashion that they had
been taught doubt. The test of their service was one of judgement rather than
knowledge.

When Korik left the Close, he went
without hesitation about the task of selecting his comrades.

He had no qualm about his choices. the
Bloodguard shared a community of prowess and responsibility; and any individual
member of the community could be elected or replaced without causing any falter
in the service of the Vow Yet he exercised care in his decisions. Cerrin and
Sill he included as a matter of course: they had borne the direct care of
Shetra and Hyrim since those Lords had first joined he Council. Then he added
Runnik and Pren because they were among the senior members of the two ancient
Haruchai
clans, the
Ho-aru
and
Nimishi
, that in the mountain fastnesses of
their home had warred together for generations until the Bond which had united
them. Similarly, he Included five younger Bloodguard from each clan, so that
both would have a fair hand in the mission. Among these was Tull, the youngest
of the Bloodguard.

Some time ago, when Lord Mhoram had made
his scouting sojourn to the Spoiled Plains and Hotash Slay, and had been forced
to flee, the Bloodguard  with him had fallen. In keeping with the ritual of the
Vow, the fallen had been Ranyhyn-borne to Guards Gap and the
Westron
Mountains
for burial
in native grave-grounds, and the
Haruchai
had sent new men to replace
them. Tull was among them. He was centuries younger than Korik; and though the
Vow bound him and straitened him and sustained him and kept him from sleep, so
that he was a Bloodguard like any other, still he did not know the Giants as
his older comrades did. For this reason, Korik chose him. It would gratify Tull
to see that the unflawed fealty of the Bloodguard was not unmatched: the Giants
of Seareach could also be trusted beyond any possibility of Corruption.