Yet he was grateful to Faer and her husband. Their companionly gestures helped him to get through the next few days, helped him to keep the vertiginous darkness at bay. He felt that he was rotting inside, but he was not going mad.
But he knew that he could not stand it much longer. The ambience of Revelstone was as tight as a string about to snap. Pressure was building inside him, rising toward desperation. When Bannor knocked at his door one afternoon, he was so startled that he almost cried out.
However, Bannor had not come to announce the start of the war. In his flat voice, he asked Covenant if the Unbeliever would like to go hear a song.
A song, he echoed numbly. For a moment, he was too confused to respond. He had not expected such a question, certainly not from the Bloodguard. But then he shrugged jerkily. “Why not?” He did not stop to ask what had prompted Bannor's unusual initiative. With a scowl, he followed the Bloodguard out of his suite.
Bannor took him up through the levels of the Keep until they were higher in the mountain than he had ever been before. Then the wide passage they followed rounded a corner, and came unexpectedly into open sunlight. They entered a broad, roofless amphitheatre. Rows of stone benches curved downward to form a bowl around a flat centre stage; and behind the topmost row the stone wall rose straight for twenty or thirty feet, ending in the flat of the plateau, where the mountain met the sky. The afternoon sun shone into the amphitheatre, drenching the dull white stone of the stage and benches and wall with warmth and light.
The seats were starting to fill when Bannor and Covenant arrived. People from all the occupations of the Keep, including farmers and cooks and warriors, and the Lords Trevor and Loerya with their daughters, came through several openings in the wall to take seats around the bowl. But the Bloodguard formed the largest single group. Covenant estimated roughly that there were a hundred of them on the benches. This vaguely surprised him. He had never seen more than a score of the Haruchai in one place before. After looking around for a while, he asked Bannor, “What song is this, anyway?”
“Lord Kevin's Lament,” Bannor replied dispassionately.
Then Covenant felt that he understood. Kevin, he nodded to himself. Of course the Bloodguard wanted to hear this song. How could they be less than keenly interested in anything which might help them to comprehend Kevin Landwaster?
For it was Kevin who had summoned Lord Foul to Kiril Threndor to utter the Ritual of Desecration. The legends said that when Kevin had seen that he could not defeat the Despiser, his heart had turned black with despair. He had loved the Land too intensely to let it fall to Lord Foul. And yet he had failed; he could not preserve it. Torn by his impossible dilemma, he had been driven to dare that Ritual. He had known that the unleashing of that fell power would destroy the Lords and all their works, and ravage the Land from end to end, make it barren for generations. He had known that he would die. But he had hoped that Lord Foul would also die, that when at last life returned to the Land it would be life free of Despite. He chose to take that risk rather than permit Lord Foul's victory. Thus he dared the Despiser to join him in Kiril Threndor. He and Lord Foul spoke the Ritual, and High Lord Kevin Landwaster destroyed the Land which he loved.
And Lord Foul had not died. He had been reduced for a time, but he had survived, preserved by the law of Time which imprisoned him upon the Earth so the legends said. So now all the Land and the new Lords lay under the consequences of Kevin's despair.
It was not surprising that the Bloodguard wanted to hear this song-or that Bannor had asked Covenant to come hear it also.
As he mused, Covenant caught a glimpse of blue from across the amphitheatre. Looking up, he saw High Lord Elena standing near one of the entrances. She, too, wanted to hear this song.
With her was Warmark Troy.
Covenant felt an urge to go join them, but before he could make up his mind to move, the singer entered the amphitheatre. She was a tall, resplendent woman, simply clad in a crimson robe, with golden hair that flew like sparks about her head. As she moved down the steps to the stage, her audience rose to its feet and silently gave her the salute of welcome. She did not return it. Her face bore a look of concentration, as if she were already feeling her song.
When she reached the stage, she did not speak, said nothing to introduce or explain or identify her song. Instead, she took her stance in the centre of the stage, composed herself for a moment as the song came over her, then lifted her face to the sun and opened her throat.
At first, her melody was restrained, arid and angular — only hinting at burned pangs and poignancies.
I stood on the pinnacle of the Earth:
Mount Thunder, its Lions in full flaming mane,
raised its crest no higher
than the horizons that my gaze commanded;
the Ranyhyn,
hooves unfettered since the Age began,
galloped gladly to my will;
iron-thewed Giants
from beyond the sun's birth in the sea
came to me in ships as mighty as castles,
and cleft my castle from the
raw Earth rock
and gave it to me out of pure friendship—
a handmark of allegiance and fealty
in the eternal stone of Time;
the Lords under my Watch laboured
to find and make manifest
the true purpose of the Earth's Creator,
barred from His creation by the very
power of that purpose—
power graven into the flesh and bone of the Land
by the immutable Law of its creation:
how could I stand so,
so much glory and dominion comprehended
by the outstretch of my arms—
stand thus,
eye to eye with the Despiser,
and not be dismayed?
But then the song changed, as if the singer opened inner chambers to give her voice more resonance. In high, arching spans of song, she gave out her threnody — highlighted it and underscored it with so many implied harmonies, so many suggestions of other accompanying voices, that she seemed to have a whole choir within her, using her one throat for utterance.
Where is the Power that protects
beauty from the decay of life?
preserves truth pure of falsehood?
secures fealty from that slow stain of chaos
which corrupts?
How are we so rendered small by Despite?
Why will the very rocks not erupt
for their own cleansing,
or crumble into dust for shame?
Creator!
When You desecrated this temple,
rid Yourself of this contempt by
inflicting it upon the Land,
did You intend
that beauty and truth should pass utterly from the
Earth?
Have You shaped my fate into the Law of life?
Am I effectless?
Must I preside over,
sanction, acknowledge with the bitter face of treachery,
approve the falling of the world?
Her music ached in the air like a wound of song. And as she finished, the people came to their feet with a rush. Together they sang into the fathomless heavens:
Ah, Creator!
Timelord and Landsire!
Did You intend
that beauty and truth should pass utterly
from the Earth?
Bannor stood, though he did not join the song. But Covenant kept his seat, feeling small and useless beside the community of Revelstone. Their emotion climaxed in the refrain, expending sharp grief and then filling the amphitheatre with a wash of peace which cleansed and healed the song's despair, as if the united power of the singing alone were answer enough to Kevin's outcry. By making music out of despair, the people resisted it. But Covenant felt otherwise. He was beginning to understand the danger that threatened the Land.