Lord Foul's Bane (10 page)

Noticing his blank look, Atiaran said kindly, “Do not be surprised, Thomas Covenant. No one but a
rhadhamaerl
can foretell weather in such stones as this. Now come with me, if you will, and I will sing the legend of Berek Halfhand.” As she spoke, she took the pot of graveling from the table to carry with her. “Lena, will you clean the stoneware?”

Covenant, got to his feet. Glancing at Lena, he saw her face twisted with unhappy obedience; she clearly wanted to go with them. But Trell also saw her expression and said, “Accompany our guest, Lena my daughter. I will not be too busy to care for the stoneware.”

Pleasure transformed her instantly, and she leaped up to throw her arms around her father's neck. He returned her embrace for a moment, then lowered her to the floor. She straightened her shift, trying to look suddenly demure, and moved to her mother's side.

Atiaran said, “Trell, you will teach this girl to think she is a queen.” But she took Lena's hand to show that she was not angry, and together they went past the curtain. Covenant followed promptly, went out of the house into the starry night with a sense of release. There was more room for him to explore himself under the open sky.

He needed exploration. He could not understand, rationalize, his mounting excitement. The springwine he had consumed seemed to provide a focus for his energies; it capered in his veins like a raving satyr. He felt inexplicably brutalized by inspiration, as if he were the victim rather than the source of his dream. White gold! he sputtered at the darkness between the houses. Wild magic! Do they think I'm crazy?

Perhaps he was crazy. Perhaps he was at this moment wandering in dementia, tormenting himself with false griefs and demands, the impositions of an illusion. Such things had happened to lepers.

I'm not! he shouted, almost cried out aloud. I know the difference- I know I'm dreaming.

His fingers twitched with violence, but he drew cool air deep into his lungs, put everything behind him. He knew how to survive a dream. Madness was the only danger.

As they walked together between the houses, Lena's smooth arm brushed his. His skin felt lambent at the touch.

The murmur of people grew quickly louder. Soon Lena, Atiaran, and Covenant reached the circle, moved into the gathering of the Stonedown.

It was lit by dozens of hand-held graveling pots, and in the illumination Covenant could see clearly. Men, women, and children clustered the rim of the circle. Covenant guessed that virtually the entire Stonedown had come to hear Atiaran sing. Most of the people were shorter than he was- and considerably shorter than Trell- and they had dark hair, brown or black, again unlike Trell. But they were a stocky, broad-shouldered breed, and even the women and children gave an impression of physical strength; centuries of stone-work had shaped them to suit their labour. Covenant felt the same dim fear of them that he had of Trell. They seemed too strong, and he had nothing but his strangeness to protect him if they turned against him.

They were busy talking to each other, apparently waiting for Atiaran, and they gave no sign of noticing Covenant. Reluctant to call attention to himself, he hung back at the outer edges of the gathering. Lena stopped with him. Atiaran gave her the graveling pot, then moved away through the crowd toward the centre of the circle.

After he had scanned the assembly, Covenant turned his attention to Lena. She stood by his right side, the top of her head just an inch or two higher than his shoulder, and she held the graveling pot at her waist with both hands, so that the light emphasized her breasts. She was clearly unconscious of the effect, but he felt it intensely, and his palms itched again with an eager and fearful desire to touch her.

As if she felt his thoughts, she looked up at him with a solemn softness in her face that made his heart lurch as if it were too big for his constraining ribs. Awkwardly, he took his eyes away, stared around the circle without seeing anything. When he glanced back at her, she seemed to be doing just what he had done- pretending to look elsewhere. He tightened his jaw and forced himself to wait for something to happen.

Soon the gathering became still. In the centre of the open circle, Atiaran stood up on a low stone platform. She bowed her head to the gathering, and the people responded by silently raising their graveling pots. The lights seemed to focus around her like a penumbra.

When the pots were lowered, and a last ripple of shuffling had passed through the gathering, Atiaran began: “I feel I am an old woman this night- my memory seems clouded, and I do not remember all the song I would like to sing. But what I remember I will sing, and I will tell you the story, as I have told it before, so that you may share what lore I have.” At this, low laughter ran through the gathering- a humorous tribute to Atiaran's superior knowledge. She remained silent, her head bowed to hide the fear that knowledge had brought her, until the people were quiet again. Then she raised her eyes and said, “I will sing the legend of Berek Halfhand.”

After a last momentary pause, she placed her song into the welcoming silence like a rough and rare jewel.

In war men pass like shadows that stain the grass,

Leaving their lives upon the green:

While Earth bewails the crimson sheen,

Men's dreams and stars and whispers all helpless pass.

In one red shadow by woe and wicked cast,

In one red pool about his feet,

Derek mows the vile like ripe wheat,

Though of all of Beauty's guarders he is last:

Last to pass into the shadow of defeat,  

And last to feel the full despair,  

And leave his weapons lying there-

Take his half unhanded hand from battle seat.

Across the plains of the Land they all swept- 

Treachers lust at faltering stride  

As Berek fled before the tide,

Till on Mount Thunder's rock-mantled side he wept.

Berek! Earthfriend! - Help and weal,

Battle-aid against the foe! 

Earth gives and answers Power's peal, 

Ringing, Earthfriend! Help and heal!

Clean the Land from bloody death and woe!

The song made Covenant quiver, as if it concealed a spectre which he should have been able to recognize. But Atiaran's voice enthralled him. No instruments aided her singing, but before she had finished her first line, he knew that she did not need them. The clean thread of her melody was tapestried with unexpected resonances, implied harmonies, echoes of silent voices, so that on every rising motif she seemed about to expand into three or four singers, throats separate and unanimous in the song.

It began in a minor mode that made the gold-hued, star-gemmed night throb like a dirge; and through it blew a black wind of loss, in which things cherished and consecrated throughout the Stonedown seemed to flicker and go out. As he listened, Covenant felt that the entire gathering wept with the song, cried out as one in silent woe under the wide power of the singer.

But grief did not remain long in that voice. After a pause that opened in the night like a revelation, Atiaran broke into her brave refrain- “Berek! Earthfriend!”- and the change carried her high in a major modulation that would have been too wrenching for any voice less rampant with suggestions, less thickly woven, than hers. The emotion of the gathering continued, but it was reborn in an instant from grief to joy and gratitude. And as Atiaran's long, last high note sprang from her throat like a salute to the mountains and the stars, the people held up their graveling pots and gave a resounding shout:

“Berek! Earthfriend! Hail!”

Then, slowly, they lowered their lights and began to press forward, moving closer to Atiaran to hear her story. The common impulse was so simple and strong that Covenant took a few steps as well before he could recollect himself. Abruptly, he looked about him- focused his eyes on the faint glimmering stars, smelled the pervasive, aroma of the graveling. The unanimous reaction of the Stonedown frightened him; he could not afford to lose himself in it. He wanted to turn away, but he needed to hear Berek's story, so he stayed where he was.

As soon as the people had settled themselves, Atiaran began.

“It came to pass that there was a great war in the eldest days, in the age that marks the beginning of the memory of mankind-before the Old Lords were born, before the Giants came across the Sunbirth Sea to make the alliance of Rockbrothers-a time before the Oath of Peace, before the Desolation and High Lord Kevin's last battle. It was a time when the Viles who sired the Demondim were a high and lofty race, and the Cavewights smithed and smelted beautiful metals to trade in open friendship with all the people of the Land. In that time, the Land was one great nation, and over it ruled a King and Queen. They were a hale pair, rich with love and honour, and for many years they held their sway in unison and peace.

“But after a time a shadow came over the heart of the King. He tasted the power of life and death over those who served him, and learned to desire it. Soon mastery became a lust with him, as necessary as food. His nights were spent in dark quests for more power, and by day he exercised that power, becoming hungrier and more cruel as the lust overcame him.

“But the Queen looked on her husband and was dismayed. She desired only that the health and fealty of the past years should return. But no appeal, no suasion or power of hers, could break the grip of cruelty that degraded the King. And at last, when she saw that the good of the Land would surely die if her husband were not halted, she broke with him, opposed his might with hers.

“Then there was war in the Land. Many who had felt the cut of the King's lash stood with the Queen. And many who hated murder and loved life joined her also. The chiefest of these was Berek- strongest and wisest of the Queen's champions. But the fear of the King was upon the Land, and whole cities rose up to fight for him, killing to protect their own slavery.

“Battle was joined across the Land, and for a time it seemed that the Queen would prevail. Her heroes were mighty of hand, and none were mightier than Berek, who was said to be a match for any King. But as the battle raged, a shadow, a grey cloud from the east, fell over the hosts. The Queen's defenders were stricken at heart, and their strength left them. But her enemies found a power of madness in the shadow. They forgot their humanity-they chopped and trampled and clawed and bit and maimed and defiled until their grey onslaught whelmed the heroes, and Berek's comrades broke one by one into despair and death. So the battle went until Berek was the last hater of the shadow left alive.

“But he fought on, heedless of his fate and the number of his foes, and souls fell dead under his sword like autumn leaves in a gale. At last, the King himself, filled with the fear and madness of the shadow, challenged Berek, and they fought. Berek stroked mightily, but the shadow turned his blade. So the contest was balanced until one blow of the King's axe cleft Berek's hand. Then Berek's sword fell to the ground, and he looked about him- looked and saw the shadow, and all his brave comrades dead. He cried a great cry of despair, and, turning, fled the battleground.

“Thus he ran, hunted by death, and the memory of the shadow was upon him. For three days he ran, never stopping, never resting- and for three days the King's host came behind him like a murderous beast, panting for blood. At the last of his strength and the extremity of his despair, he came to Mount Thunder. Climbing the rock-strewn slope, he threw himself down atop a great boulder and wept, saying, “Alas for the Earth. We are overthrown, and have no friend to redeem us. Beauty shall pass utterly from the Land.”

“But the rock on which he lay replied, “There is a Friend for a heart with the wisdom to see it.”

“The stones are not my friends, cried Berek. See, my enemies ride the Land, and no convulsion tears the earth from under their befouling feet.”

“That may be,” said the rock. `They are alive as much as you, and need the ground to stand upon. Yet there is a Friend for you in the Earth, if you will pledge your soul to its healing.'

"Then Berek stood upon the rock, and beheld his enemies close upon him. He took the pledge, sealing it with the blood of his riven hand. The Earth replied with thunder; from the heights of the mountain came great stone Fire-Lions, devouring everything in their path. The King and all his host were laid waste, and Berek alone stood above the rampage on his boulder like a tall ship in the sea.

“When the rampage had passed, Berek did homage to the Lions of Mount Thunder, promising respect and communion and service for the Earth from himself and all the generations which followed him upon the Land. Wielding the first Earthpower, he made the Staff of Law from the wood of the One Tree, and with it began the healing of the Land. In the fullness of time, Berek Halfhand was given the name Heartthew, and he became the Lord-Fatherer, the first of the Old Lords. Those who followed his path flourished in the Land for two thousand years.”

For a long moment, there was silence over the gathering when Atiaran finished. Then together, as if their pulses moved to a single beat, the Stonedownors began to surge forward, stretching out their hands to touch her in appreciation. She spread her arms to hug as many of her friends as she could, and those who could not reach her embraced each other, sharing the oneness of their communal response.