Thomas Covenant 03: Power That Preserves (43 page)

“So I’m not going—I am not going to Foul’s Creche. I’m going to do something simple and selfish and practical and cautious instead. I’m going to take care of myself as a leper should. I’ll go into the Plains—I’ll find the Ramen. They’ll take me with them. The Ranyhyn—the Ranyhyn are probably going south already to hide in the mountains. The Ramen will take me with them. Mhoram doesn’t know I’m here, so he won’t be expecting anything from me.

“Please understand, Triock. My grief for you is—it’ll never end. I loved Elena, and I love the Land. But if I can just keep myself alive the way I should—Foul can’t win. He can’t win.”

Triock met this speech queerly across the distance between them. His anger seemed to fade, but it was not replaced by understanding. Instead a mixture of cunning and desperation gained the upper hand on his desire to flee, so that his voice held a half-hysterical note of cajolery as he said, “Come, Unbeliever—do not take this choice hastily. Let us speak of it calmly. Let me urge—” He looked around as if in search of assistance, then went on hurriedly, “You are hungry and worn. That Forest has exacted a harsh penance—I see it. Let us rest here for a time. We are in no danger. I will build a fire—prepare food for you. We will talk of this choice while it may still be altered.”

Why? Covenant wanted to ask. Why have you changed like this? But he already knew too many explanations. And Triock bustled away promptly in search of firewood as if to forestall any questions. The land on this side of the Roamsedge had been wooded at one time, and before long he had collected a large pile of dead brush and bushes, which he placed in the shelter of a hill a short distance from the Ford. All the time, he kept his face averted from Covenant.

When he was satisfied with his quantity of wood, he stooped in front of the pile with his hands hidden as if for some obscure reason he did not want Covenant to see how he started the fire. As soon as flames had begun to spread through the brush, he positioned himself on the far side of the fire and urged Covenant to approach its warmth.

Covenant acquiesced gladly enough. His robe could not keep the cold out of his hands and feet; he could hardly refuse a fire. And he could hardly refuse Triock’s desire to discuss his decision. His debt to Triock was large—not easily borne. He sat down within the radiant balm of the fire opposite Triock and silently watched him prepare a meal.

As he worked, Triock mumbled to himself in a tone that made Covenant feel oddly uncomfortable. His movements seemed awkward, as if he were trying to conceal arcane gestures while he handled the food. He avoided Covenant’s gaze, but whenever Covenant looked away, he could feel Triock’s eyes flick furtively over him and flinch away. He was startled when Triock said abruptly, “So you have given up hate.”

“Given up—?” He had not thought of the matter in those terms before. “Maybe I have. It doesn’t seem like a very good answer. I mean, aside from the fact that there’s no room for it in—in the law of leprosy. Hate, humiliation, revenge—I make a mistake every time I let them touch me. I risk my life. And love, too, if you want to know the truth. But aside from that. It doesn’t seem that I could beat Foul that way. I’m just a man. I can’t hate—forever—as he can. And”—he forced himself to articulate a new perception—“my hate isn’t pure. It’s corrupt because part of me always hates me instead of him. Always.”

Triock placed a stoneware pot of stew in the fire to cook and said in a tone of eerie conviction, “It is the only answer. Look about you. Health, love, duty—none suffice against this winter. Only those who hate are immortal.”

“Immortal?”

“Certainly. Death claims all else in the end. How else do the Despiser and—and his”—he said the name as if it dismayed him—“Ravers endure? They hate.” In his hoarse, barking tone, the word took on a wide range of passion and violence, as if indeed it were the one word of truth and transcendence.

The savor of the stew began to reach Covenant. He found that he was hungry—and that his inner quiescence covered even Triock’s queer asseverations. He stretched out his legs, reclined on one elbow. “Hate,” he sighed softly, reducing the word to manageable dimensions. “Is that it, Triock? I think—I think I’ve spent this whole thing—dream, delusion, fact, whatever you want to call it—I’ve spent it all looking for a good answer to death. Resistance, rape—ridicule—love—hate? Is that it? Is that your answer?”

“Do not mistake me,” Triock replied. “I do not hate death.”

Covenant gazed into the dance of the fire for a moment and let the aroma of the stew remind him of deep, sure, empty peace. Then he said as if he were completing a litany, “What do you hate?”

“I hate life.”

Brusquely Triock spooned stew into bowls. When he handed a bowl around the fire to Covenant, his hand shook. But as soon as he had returned to his hooded covert beyond the flames, he snapped angrily, “Do you think I am unjustified? You, Unbeliever?”

No. No. Covenant could not lift up his head against the accusation in Triock’s voice. Hate me as much as you need to, he breathed into the crackling of the fire and the steaming stew. I don’t want anyone else to sacrifice himself for me. Without looking up, he began to eat.

The taste of the stew was not unpleasant, but it had a disconcerting under-flavor which made it difficult to swallow. Yet once a mouthful had passed his throat, he found it warm and reassuring. Slowly drowsiness spread outward from it. After a few moments, he was vaguely surprised to see that he had emptied the bowl.

He put it aside and lay down on his back. Now the fire seemed to grow higher and hotter, so that he only caught glimpses of Triock watching him keenly through the weaving spring and crackle of the flames. He was beginning to rest when he heard Triock say through the fiery veil, “Unbeliever, why do you not resume your journey to Foul’s Creche? Surely you do not believe that the Despiser will permit your flight—after he has striven so to bring about this confrontation of which you speak.”

“He won’t want me to get away,” Covenant replied emptily, surely. “But I think he’s too busy doing other things to stop me. And if I can slip through his fingers just once, he’ll let me go—at least for a while. I’ve—I’ve already done so much for him. The only thing he still wants from me is the ring. If I don’t threaten him with it, he’ll let me go while he fights the Lords. And then he’ll be too late. I’ll be gone as far as the Ranyhyn can take me.”

“But what of this—this Creator”—Triock spat the word—“who they say also chose you. Has he no hold upon you?”

Sleepiness only strengthened Covenant’s confidence. “I don’t owe him anything. He chose me for this—I didn’t choose it or him. If he doesn’t like what I do, let him find someone else.”

“But what of the people who have died and suffered for you?” Triock’s anger returned, and he ripped the words as if they were illustrations of meaning which he tore from the walls of a secret Hall of Gifts deep within him. “How will you supply the significance they have earned from you? They have lost themselves in bootless death if you flee.”

I know, Covenant sighed to the sharp flames and the wind. We’re all futile, alive or dead. He made an effort to speak clearly through his coming sleep. “What kind of significance will it give them if I commit suicide? They won’t thank me for throwing away—something that cost them so much. While I’m alive”—he lost the thought, then recovered it—“while I’m alive, the Land is still alive.”

“Because it is your dream!”

Yes. For that reason among others.

Covenant experienced a moment of stillness before the passion of Triock’s response penetrated him. Then he hauled himself up and peered wearily through the fire at the Stonedownor. Because he could think of nothing else to say, he murmured, “Why don’t you get some rest? You probably exhausted yourself waiting for me.”

“I have given up sleep.”

Covenant yawned. “Don’t be ridiculous. What do you think you are? A Bloodguard?”

In answer, Triock laughed tautly, like a cord about to snap.

The sound made Covenant feel that something was wrong, that he should not have been so irresistibly sleepy. He should have had the strength to meet Triock’s distress responsibly. But he could hardly keep his eyes open. Rubbing his stiff face, he said, “Why don’t you admit it? You’re afraid I’ll sneak off as soon as you stop watching me.”

“I do not mean to lose you now, Thomas Covenant.”

“I wouldn’t—do that to you.” Covenant blinked and found his cheek resting against the hard ground. He could not remember having reclined. Wake up, he said to himself without conviction. Sleep seemed to be falling on him out of the grayness of the sky. He mumbled, “I still don’t know how you found me.” But he was asleep before the sound of his voice reached his ears.

He felt he had been unconscious for only a moment when he became aware on a half-subliminal level of darknesses thronging toward him out of the winter, as abysmal as death. Against them came faint alien gleams of music which he recognized and did not remember. They melodied themselves about him in blue-green intervals that he could neither hear nor see. They appeared weak, elusive, like voices calling to him across a great distance. But they were insistent; they nudged him, sang to him, plied him toward consciousness. Through his uncomprehending stupor, they danced a blind, voiceless warning of peril.

To his own surprise, he heard himself muttering: He drugged me. By hell! that crazy man drugged me. The assertion made no sense. How had he arrived at such a conclusion? Triock was an honest man, frank and magnanimous in grief—a man who clove to mercy and peace despite their cost to himself.

He drugged me.

Where had that conviction come from? Covenant fumbled with numb fingers through his unconsciousness, while an unshakable sense of peril clutched his heart. Darkness and harm crowded toward him. Behind his sleep—behind the glaucous music—he seemed to see Triock’s campfire still burning.

How did he light that fire?

How did he find me?

The urgent gleams were trying to tell him things he could not hear. Triock was a danger. Triock had drugged him. He must get up and flee—flee somewhere—flee into the Forest.

He struggled into a sitting position, wrenched his eyes open. He faced the low campfire in the last dead light of evening. Winter blew about him as if it were salivating gall. He could smell the approach of snow; already a few fetid flakes were visible at the edges of the firelight. Triock sat cross-legged opposite him, stared at him out of the smoldering abomination of his eyes.

In the air before Covenant danced faint glaucous gleams, fragments of inaudible song. They were shrill with insistence: flee! flee!

“What is it?” He tried to beat off the clinging hands of slumber. “What are they doing?”

“Send it away,” Triock answered in a voice full of fear and loathing. “Rid yourself of it. He cannot claim you now.”

“What is it?” Covenant lurched to his feet and stood trembling, hardly able to contain the panic in his muscles. “What’s happening?”

“It is the voice of a Forestal.” Triock spoke simply, but every angle of his inflection expressed execration. He jumped erect and balanced himself as if he meant to give chase when Covenant began to run. “Garroting Deep has sent Caer-Caveral to Morinmoss. But he cannot claim you. I can”—his voice shook—“I cannot permit it.”

“Claim? Permit?” The peril gripping Covenant’s heart tightened until he gasped. Something in him that he could not remember urged him to trust the gleams. “You drugged me!”

“So that you would not escape!” White, rigid fear clenched Triock, and he stammered through drawn lips, “He urges you to destroy me. He cannot reach far from Morinmoss, but he urges—the white gold—! Ah!” Abruptly his voice sharpened into a shriek. “Do not toy with me! I cannot—! Destroy me and have done! I cannot endure it!”

The cries cut through Covenant’s own dread. His distress receded, and he found himself grieving for the Stonedownor. Across the urging of the gleams, he breathed thickly, “Destroy you? Don’t you know that you’re safe from me? Don’t you understand that I haven’t got one godforsaken idea how to use this—this white gold? I couldn’t hurt you if that were my heart’s sole desire.”

“What?” Triock howled. “Still? Have I feared you for nothing?”

“For nothing,” groaned Covenant.

Triock gaped bleakly out from under his hood, then threw back his head and began to laugh. Mordant glee barked through his teeth, making the music shiver as if its abhorrence were no less than his. “Powerless!” he laughed. “By the mirth of my master! Powerless!”

Chuckling savagely, he started toward Covenant.

At once, the silent song rushed gleaming between them. But Triock advanced against the lights. “Begone!” he growled. “You also will pay for your part in this.” With a deft movement, he caught one spangle in each fist. Their wailing shimmered in the air as he crushed them between his fingers.

Ringing like broken crystal, the rest of the music vanished.

Covenant reeled as if an unseen support had been snatched away. He flung up his hands against Triock’s approach, stumbled backward. But the man did not touch him. Instead he stamped one foot on the hard ground. The earth bucked under Covenant, stretched him at Triock’s feet.

Then Triock threw off his hood. His visage was littered with broken possibilities, wrecked faiths and loves, but behind his features his skull shone with pale malice. The backs of his eyes were as black as night, and his teeth gaped as if they were hungry for the taste of flesh. Leering down at Covenant, he smirked, “No, groveler. I will not strike you again. The time for masquerading has ended. My master may frown upon me if I harm you now.”

“Master?” Covenant croaked.

“I am
turiya
Raver, also called Herem—and Kinslaughterer—and Triock.” He laughed again grotesquely. “This guise has served me well, though ‘Triock’ is not pleased. Behold me, groveler! I need no longer let his form and thoughts disguise me. You are powerless. Ah, I savor that jest! So now I permit you to know me as I am. It was I who slew the Giants of Seareach—I who slew the Unfettered One as he sought to warn that fool Mhoram—I who have captured the white gold! Brothers! I will sit upon the master’s right hand and rule the universe!”