The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War (20 page)

“So you see,” said Elena, “that the Giants wrought well for the Land in all ways.

While Revelstone stands, there remains one bastion of hope. In its own way, the Keep is as impervious to defeat as Foul’s Creche is said to be-in the old legends. This is vital, for the legends also say that the shadow of Despite will never be wholly driven from the Land while Ridjeck Thome, Lord Foul’s dire demesne, endures. So our: debt to the Giants is far greater than for unfaltering friendship. It is greater than anything we can repay.”

Her tone was grateful, but her mention of the Giants cast a gloom over her and Covenant. She turned away from it, and led him northward along the curve of the upland.

In this direction, the plateau rose into rumpled hills; and soon, on their left, away from the cliff, they began to pass herds of grazing cattle. Cattleherds saluted the High Lord ceremoniously, and she responded with quiet bows. Later, she and Covenant crossed a hilltop from which they could see westward across the width of the upland.

There, beyond the swift river that ran south toward the bead of Furl Falls, were fields where crops of wheat and maize rippled in the breeze. And a league behind the grazeland and the river and the fields stood the mountains, rising rugged and grand out of the hills.

The peaks were snow-clad, and their white bemantling made them look hoary and aloof-sheer, wild, and irreproachable. The Haruchai lived west and south in this same range.

Covenant and the High Lord continued northward, slowly winding away from the cliffs and toward the river as Elena chose an easy path among the hills. She seemed content with the silence between them, so they both moved without speaking. Covenant walked as if he were drinking in the upland with his eyes and ears. The sturdy health of the grass, the clean, hale soil and the inviolate rock, the ripeness of the wheat and maize-all were vivid to his sight. The singing and soaring of the birds sounded like joy in the air.

And when he passed close to a particularly tall, magisterial pine, he felt that he could almost hear the climbing of its sap. For a league, he forgot himself in his enjoyment of the Land’s late summer.

Then he began to wonder vaguely how far Elena meant to take him. But before he became willing to interrupt the quietness with a question, they crossed the rise of a high hill, and she announced that they had arrived. “Ah,” she said with a sigh of gladness,

“Glimmermere! Lakespring and riverhead-hail, clean pool! It pleases my heart to see you again.”

They were looking down on a mountain lake, the headwater of the river which ran to Furl Falls. For all the swiftness of the current rushing from it, it was a still pool, with no inflowing streams; all its water came from springs within it. And its surface was as flat, clear, and reflective as polished glass. It echoed the mountains and the sky with flawless fidelity, imaging the world in every detail.

“Come,” Elena said suddenly. “The Unfettered One will ask us to bathe in Glimmermere.” Throwing a quick smile at him, she ran lightly down the hill. He followed her at a walk, but the springy grass seemed to urge him forward until he was trotting. On the edge of the lake, she dropped the Staff as if she were discarding it, tightened the sash of her robe, and with a last wave toward him dove into the water.

When he reached Glimmermere, he was momentarily appalled to find that she had vanished. From this range, the reflection was transparent, and behind it he could see the rocky bottom of the lake. Except for a darkness like a deep shadow at its center, he could see the whole bottom in clear detail, as if the pool were only a few feet deep. But he could not see Elena. She seemed to have dived out of existence.

He leaned over the water to peer into it, then stepped back sharply as he noticed that Glimmermere did not reflect his image. The noon sun was repeated through him as if he were invisible.

The next instant, Elena broke water twenty yards out in the lake. She shook her head clear, and called for him to join her. When she saw the wide gape of his astonishment, she laughed gaily. “Does Glimmermere surprise you?”

He stared at her. He could see nothing of her below the plane where she broke the water. Her physical substance seemed to terminate at the waterline. Above the surface, she bobbed as if she were treading water; below, the bottom of the pool was clearly visible through the space she should have occupied. With an effort, he pulled his mouth shut, then called to her, “I told you to give me fair warning!”

“Come!” she replied. “Do not be concerned. There is no harm.” When he did not move, she continued, “This is water, like any other-but stronger. There is Earthpower here. Our flesh is too unsolid for Glimmermere. It does not see us. Come!”

Tentatively, he stooped and dipped his hand in the water. His fingers vanished as soon as they passed below the surface. But when he snatched them back, they were whole and wet, tingling with cold.

Impelled by a sense of surprise and discovery, he pulled off his boots and socks, rolled up his pant legs, and stepped into the pool.

At once, he plunged in over his head. Even at its edges, the lake was deep; the clarity with which he could see the bottom had misled him. But the cold, tangy water buoyed him up, and he popped quickly back to the surface. Treading water and sputtering, he looked around until he located Elena. “Fair warning!” He tried to sound angry despite Glimmermere’s fresh, exuberant chill. “I’ll teach you fair warning!” He reached her in a few swift strokes, and shoved her head down., She reappeared immediately, laughing almost before she lifted her head above water. He lunged at her, but she slipped ,past him, and pushed him under instead. He grappled for her ankles and missed. When he came up, she was out of sight.

He felt her tugging at his feet. Grabbing a deep breath, he upended himself and plunged after her. For the first time, he opened his eyes underwater, and found that he could see well. Elena swam near him, grinning. He reached her in a moment, and caught her by the waist.

Instead of trying to pull away, she turned, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him on the mouth.

Abruptly, all the air burst from his lungs as if she had kicked his sore ribs. He thrust away from her, scrambled back to the surface. Coughing and gasping, he thrashed over to the edge of the pool where he had left his boots, and climbed out to collapse on the grass.

His chest hurt as if he had reinjured his ribs, but he knew he had not. The first touch of Glimmermere’s potent water had effaced his bruises, simply washed them away, and they did not ache now. This was another pain; in his exertions underwater he seemed to have wrenched his heart.

He lay panting face down on the grass, and after a while, his breathing relaxed.

He became aware of other sensations. The cold, tart touch of the water left his whole body excited; he felt cleaner than he had at any time since he had learned of his leprosy.

The sun was warm on his back, and his fingertips tingled vividly. And his heart ached when- Elena joined him on the grass.

He could feel her eyes on him before she asked quietly, “Are you happy in your world?”

Clenching himself, he rolled over, and found that she sat close to him, regarding him softly. Unable to resist the sensation, he touched a strand of her wet hair, rubbed it between his fingers. Then he lifted his gray, gaunt eyes to meet her gaze. The way he held himself made his voice unintentionally harsh. “Happiness has got nothing to do with it. I don’t think about happiness. I think about staying alive.”

“Could you be happy here?”

“That’s not fair. What would you say if I asked you that?”

“I would say yes.” But a moment later she saw what he meant, and drew herself up. “I would say that happiness lies in serving the Land. And I would say that there is no happiness in times of war.”

He lay back on the grass so that he would not have to look at her. Bleakly, he murmured, “Where I come from, there is no Land.’ Just ground.’ Dead. And there’s always war.”

After a short pause, she said with a smile in her voice, “If I have heard rightly, it is such talk as this which makes Hiltmark Quaan angry with you.”

“I can’t help it. It’s the simple fact.”

“You have a great respect for facts”

He breathed carefully around his sore heart before answering. “No. I hate them.

They’re all I’ve got.”

A gentle silence came over them. Elena reclined beside him, and they lay still to let the sunlight dry them. The warmth, the smell of the grass, seemed to offer him a sense of well-being; but when he tried to relax and flow with it, his pulse throbbed uncomfortably in his chest. He was too conscious of Elena’s presence. But gradually he became aware that a larger silence covered Glimmermere. All the birds and even the breeze had become quiet, hushed. For a time, he kept his breathing shallow and explored the ambience of the air with his ears.

Shortly, Elena said, “He comes,” and went to retrieve the Staff. Covenant sat up and looked around. Then he heard it a soft, clean sound like a flute, spreading over Glimmermere from one source that he could see, as if the air itself were singing. The tune moved, came closer. Soon he could follow the words.

Free

Unfettered

Shriven

Free —

Dream that what is dreamed will be:

Hold eyes clasped shut until they see,

And sing the silent prophecy —

And be

Unfettered

Shriven

Free.

Lone

Unfriended

Bondless

Lone —

Drink of loss ‘til it is done,

‘Till solitude has come and gone,

And silence is communion —

And yet

Unfriended

Bondless

Lone.

Deep

Unbottomed

Endless

Deep —

Touch the true mysterious Keep

Where halls of fealty laugh and weep;

While treachers through the dooming creep

In blood

Unbottomed

Endless

Deep.

“Stand to meet him,” the High Lord said quietly. “He is One of the Unfettered. He has gone beyond the knowledge of the Loresraat, in pursuance of a private vision open to him alone.”

Covenant arose, still listening to the song. It had an entrancing quality which silenced his questions and doubts. He stood erect, with his head up as if he were eager.

And soon the Unfettered One came into sight over the hills north of Glimmermere.

He stopped singing when he saw Covenant and Elena, but his appearance sustained his influence over them. He wore a long flowing robe that seemed to have no color of its own; instead it caught the shades around it, so that it was grass-green below his waist, azure on his shoulders, and the rock and snow of the mountains flickered on his right side. His unkempt hair flared, reflecting the sun.

He came directly toward Covenant and Elena, and soon Covenant could make out his face-soft androgynous features thickly bearded, deep eyes. When he stopped before them, he and the High Lord exchanged no rituals or greetings. He said to her simply,

“Leave us,” in a high, fluted voice like a woman’s. His tone expressed neither rejection nor command, but rather something that sounded like necessity, and she bowed to it without question.

But before she left, she put her hand again on Covenant’s arm, looked searchingly into his face. “Thomas Covenant,” she said with a low quaver in her voice as if she were afraid of him or for him. “UrLord. When I must leave for this warwill you accompany me?”

He did not look at her. He stood as if his toes were rooted in the grass, and gazed into the Unfettered One’s eyes. When after a time he failed to reply, she bowed her head, squeezed his arm, then moved away toward Revelstone. She did not look back. Soon she was out of sight beyond the hill.

“Come,” said the Unfettered One in the same tone of necessity. Without waiting for a response, he started to return the way he had come.

Covenant took two uncertain steps forward, then stopped as a spasm of anxiety clenched his features. He tore his eyes off the Unfettered One’s back, looked urgently around him. When he located his socks and boots, he hurried toward them, dropped to the grass and pulled them onto his feet. With a febrile deliberateness, as if he were resisting the tug of some current or compulsion, he laced his boots and tied them securely.

When his feet were safe from the grass, he sprang up and ran after the interpreter of dreams.

TEN: Seer and Oracle

LATE the next evening, Lord Mhoram answered a knock at the door of his private quarters, and found Thomas Covenant standing outside, silhouetted darkly like a figure of distress against the light of the glowing floor. He had an aspect of privation and fatigue, as if he had tasted neither food nor rest since he had gone upland. Mhoram admitted him without question to the bare room, and closed the door while he went to stand before the stone table in the center of the chamber-the table Mhoram had brought from the High Lord’s rooms, with the krill of Loric still embedded and burning in it.

Looking at the bunched muscles of Covenant’s back, Mhoram offered him food or drink or a bed, but Covenant shrugged them away brusquely, despite his inanition. In a flat and strangely closed tone, he said, “You’ve been beating your brains out on this thing ever since it started. Don’t you ever rest?

I thought you Lords rested down here-in this place.” Mhoram crossed the room, and stood opposite his guest. The krill flamed whitely between them. He was uncertain of his ground; he could see the trouble in Covenant’s face, but its causes and implications were confused, obscure. Carefully, the Lord said, “Why should I rest? I have no wife, no children. My father and mother were both Lords, and Kevin’s Lore is the only craft I have known. And it is difficult to rest from such work.”

“And you’re driven. You’re the seer and oracle around here. You’re the one who gets glimpses of the future whether you want them or not, whether they make you scream in your sleep or not, whether you can stand them or not.” Covenant’s voice choked for a moment, and he shook his head fiercely until he could speak again. “No wonder you can’t rest. I’m surprised you can stand to sleep at all.”