Lord Foul's Bane (43 page)

Covenant, he thought. Thomas Covenant. Unbeliever. Leper outcast unclean. When a pang from his hunger made him waver, he remembered Drool's bloody grip on his ring, and his resolve steadied.

From time to time, Llaura looked at him with the death of Soaring Woodhelven in her eyes, but he only clenched himself harder and rode on.

I won't do any more killing.

He had to have some other answer.

That night, he found that a change had come over his ring. Now all evidence that it resisted red encroachments was gone. His wedding band burned completely crimson under the dominion of the moon, flaming coldly on his hand as if in greedy response to Drool's power. The next morning, he began the day's riding like a man torn between opposing poles of insanity.

But there was a foretaste of summer in the noon breeze. The air turned warm and redolent with the ripeness of the earth. The flowers had a confident bloom, and the birds sang languidly. Gradually, Covenant grew full of lassitude. Languor loosened the strings of his will. Only the habit of riding kept him on Dura's back; he became numb to such superficial considerations. He hardly noticed when the river began to curve northward away from the company, or when the hills began to climb higher. He moved blankly on the warm currents of the day. That night he slept deeply, dreamlessly, and the next day he rode on in numbness and unconcern.

Waking slumber held him. It was a wilderland that he wandered unaware; he was in danger without knowing it. Lassitude was the first step in an inexorable. logic, the law of leprosy. The next was gangrene, a stink of rotting live flesh so terrible that even some physicians could not bear it- a stench which ratified the outcasting of lepers in a way no mere compassion or unprejudice could oppose. But Covenant travelled his dream with his mind full of sleep.

When he began to recover- early in the afternoon of the third day from Soaring Woodhelven, the eighteenth since the company had left Revelstone- he found himself looking over Morinmoss Forest. The company stood on the last hilltop before the land fell under the dark aegis of the trees.

Morinmoss lay at the foot of the hill like a lapping sea; its edges gripped the hillsides as if the trees had clenched their roots in the slopes and refused to be driven back. The dark, various green of the Forest spread to the horizon north and east and south. It had a forbidding look; it seemed to defy the Quest to pass through it. High Lord Prothall stopped on the crest of the hill, and gazed for a long time over the Forest, weighing the time needed to ride around Morinmoss against the obscure dangers of the trees.

Finally, he dismounted. He looked over the riders, and his eyes were full of potential anger as he spoke. “We will rest now. Then we will ride into Morinmoss, and will not stop until we have reached the far side- a journey of nearly a day and a night. During that ride, we must show neither blade nor spark. Hear you? All swords sheathed, all arrows quivered, all knives cloaked, all spear tips bound. And every spark or gleam of fire quenched. I will have no mistake. Morinmoss is wilder than Grimmerdhore- and none go un-anxious into that wood. The trees have suffered for ages, and they do not forget their kinship with Garroting Deep. Pray that they do not - crush us all, regardless.” He paused, scanning the company until he was sure that all understood him. Then he added more gently, “It is possible that there is still a Forestal in Morinmoss- though that knowledge has been lost since the Desecration.”

Several of the warriors tensed at the word
Forestal
. But Covenant, coming slowly out of his languor, felt none of the awe which seemed to be expected of him. He asked as he had once before, “Do you worship trees?”

“Worship?” Prothall seemed puzzled. “The word is obscure to me.”

Covenant stared.

A moment later, the High Lord went on, “Do you ask if we reverence the forests? Of course. They are alive, and there is Earthpower in all living things, all stone and earth and water and wood. Surely you understand that we are the servants of that Power. We care for the life of the Land.” He glanced back at the Forest, then continued, “The Earthpower takes many forms between wood and stone. Stone bedrocks the world, and to the best of our comprehension weak as it is- that form of power does not know itself. But wood is otherwise.

“At one time, in the dimmest, lost distance of the past, nearly all the Land was One Forest- one mighty wood from Trothgard and
Melenkurion
Skyweir to Sarangrave Flat and Seareach. And the Forest was awake. It knew and welcomed the new life which people brought to the Land. It felt the pain when mere men- blind, foolish moments in the ancientness of the Land- cut down and burned out the trees to make space in which to breed their folly. Ah, it is hard to take pride in human history. Before the slow knowledge spread throughout the Forest, so that each tree knew its peril, hundreds of leagues of life had been decimated. By our reckoning, the deed took time- more than a thousand years. But it must have seemed a rapid murder to the trees. At the end of that time, there were only four places left in the Land where the soul of the Forest lingered- survived, and shuddered in its awesome pain- and took resolve to defend itself. Then for many ages Giant Woods and Grimmerdhore and Morinmoss and Garroting Deep lived, and their awareness endured in the care of the Forestals. They remembered, and no human or Vile or Cavewight who dared enter them survived.

“Now even those ages are past. We know not if the Forestall yet live- though only a fool would deny that Caerroil Wildwood still walks in Garroting Deep. But the awareness which enabled the trees to strike back is fading. The Lords have defended the Forests since Berek Halfhand first took up the Staff of Law- we have not let the trees diminish. Yet their spirit fails. Cut off from each other, the collective knowledge of the Forests dies. And the glory of the world becomes less than it was.”

Prothall paused sadly for a moment before concluding, “It is in deference to the remaining spirit, and in reverence for the Earthpower, that we ask permission for so many to enter the Forest at one time. And it is in simple caution that we offer no offense. The spirit is not dead. And the power of Morinmoss could crush a thousand thousand men if the trees were pained into wakefulness

 “Are there other dangers?” Quaan asked. “Will we need our weapons?”

“No. Lord Foul's servants have done great harm to the Forests in ages past. Perhaps Grimmerdhore has lost its power, but Morinmoss remembers. And tonight is the dark of the moon. Even Drool Rockworm is not mad enough to order his forces into Morinmoss at such a time. And the Despiser has never been such a fool.”

Quietly, the riders dismounted. Some of the Eoman fed the horses, while others prepared a quick meal. Soon all the company except Covenant had eaten. And after the meal, while the Bloodguard watched, the Questers laid themselves down to rest before the long passage of the Forest.

When they were roused again and ready to travel, Prothall strode up to the edge of the hillcrest. The breeze was stronger there; it guttered his black-sashed blue robe as he raised his staff and cried loudly, “Hail, Morinmoss! Forest of the One Forest! Enemy of our enemies! Morinmoss, hail!” His voice fell into the expanse of the woods forlornly, without echo. "We are the Lords- foes to your enemies, and learners of the
lillianrill
lore! We must pass through!

“Harken, Morinmoss! We hate the axe and game which hurt you! Your enemies are our enemies. Never have we brought edge of axe or flame of fire to touch you- nor ever shall. Morinmoss, harken! Let us pass!”

His call disappeared into the depths of the Forest. At last, he lowered his arms, then turned and came back to the company. He mounted his horse, looked once more sternly over the riders. At his signal, they rode down toward the knuckled edges of Morinmoss.

They seemed to fall like a stone into the Forest. One moment, they were still winding down the hillside above the trees; the next, they had penetrated the gloomy deep, and the sunlight closed behind them like an unregainable door. Birinair went at the head of the company, with his Hirebrand's staff held across his mount's neck; and behind him rode First Mark Tuvor on the Ranyhyn stallion Marny- for the Ranyhyn had nothing to fear from the old anger of Morinmoss, and Marny could guide Birinair if the aged Hearthrall went astray. Behind Tuvor came Prothall and Mhoram, with Llaura at Mhoram's back; and behind them came Covenant and Foamfollower. The Giant still carried the sleeping child. Then followed Quaan and his Eoman, bunched together among the Bloodguard.

There was room for them to pass. The trees with their dark-mingled ebony and russet trunks were widely placed, leaving space between them for undergrowth and animals; and the riders found their way without difficulty. But the trees were not tall. They rose for fifteen or twenty feet on squat trunks, then spread outward in gnarled, drooping branches heavy with foliage, so that the company was completely enshrouded in the gloom of Morinmoss. The branches interwove until each tree seemed to be standing with its arms braced heavily on the shoulders of its kindred. And from the limbs hung great curtains and strands of moss-dark, thick, damp moss falling from the branches like slow blood caught and frozen as it bled. The moss dangled before the riders as if it were trying to turn them aside, deflect them from their path. And on the deep, mossy ground the hooves of the horses made no sound. The riders went their way as silently as if they had been translated into an illusion.

Instinctively dodging away from the dark touch of the moss, Covenant peered into the Forest's perpetual gloaming. As far as he could see in all directions, he was surrounded by the grotesque ire of moss and branch and trunk. But beyond the limit of his explicit senses he could see more- see, and smell, and in the silence of the Forest hear, the brooding heart of the woods. There the trees contemplated their grim memories- the broad, budding burst of self awareness, when the spirit of the wood lay grandly over hundreds of leagues of rich earth; and the raw plummet of pain and horror and disbelief, spreading like ripples on an ocean until the farthest leaves in the Land shivered, when the slaughter of the trees began, root and branch and all cut and consumed by axe and flame, and stumps dragged away; and the scurry and anguish of the animals, slaughtered too or bereft of home and health and hope; and the clear song of the Forestal, whose tune taught the secret, angry pleasure of crushing, of striking hack at tiny men and tasting their blood at the roots; and the slow weakness which ended even that last fierce joy, and left the trees with nothing but their stiff memories and their despair as they watched their rage fall into slumber.

Covenant sensed that the trees knew nothing of Lords or friendship; the Lords were too recent in the Land to be remembered. 

No, it was weakness, the failure of spirit, that let the riders pass- weakness, sorrow, helpless sleep. Here and there, he could hear trees that were still awake and aching for blood. But they were too few, too few. Morinmoss could only brood, bereft of force by its own ancient mortality.

A hand of moss struck him, and left moisture on his face. He wiped the wet away as if it were acid.

Then the sun set beyond Morinmoss, and even that low light was gone. Covenant leaned forward in his saddle, alert now, and afraid that Birinair would lose his way, or stumble into a curtain of moss and be smothered. But as darkness seeped into the sir as if it were dripping from the enshrouding branches, a change came over the wood. Gradually, a silver glow grew on the trunks- grew and strengthened as night filled the Forest, until each tree stood shimmering like a lost soul in the gloom. The silver light was bright enough to show the riders their way. Across the shifting patterns of the glow, the moss sheets hung like shadows of an abyss- black holes into emptiness- giving the wood a blotched, leprous look. But the company huddled together, and rode on through a night illumined only by the gleam of the trees, and by the red burn of Covenant's ring.

He felt that he could hear the trees muttering in horror at the offense of his wedding band. And its pulsing red glow appalled him. Moss fingers flicked his face with a wet, probing touch. He clenched his hands over his heart, trying to pull himself inward, reduce himself and pass unnoticed- rode as if he carried an axe under his robe, and was terrified lest the trees discover it.

That long ride passed like the hurt of a wound. Acute throbs finally blurred together, and at last the company was again riding through the dimness of day. Covenant shivered, looked about within himself. What he saw left him mute. He felt that the cistern of his rage was full of darkness.

But he was caught in toils of insoluble circumstance. The darkness was a cup which he could neither drink nor dash aside.

And he was trembling with hunger.

He could hardly restrain himself from striking back at the damp clutch of the moss.

Still the company travelled the perpetual twilight of Morinmoss. They were silent, stifled by the enshrouding branches; and in the cloying quiet, Covenant felt as lost as if he had missed his way in the old Forest which had covered all the Land. With vague fury, he ducked and dodged the grasping of the moss. Time passed, and he had a mounting desire to scream.

Then, finally, Birinair waved his staff over his head and gave a weak shout. The horses understood; they stumbled into a tired run beside the strong step of the Ranyhyn. For a moment, the trees seemed to stand back, as if drawing away from the company's madness. Then the riders broke out into sunshine. They found themselves under a noon sky on a slope which bent gradually down to a river lying squarely across their way. Birinair and Marry had brought them unerringly to Roamsedge Ford.