Redeemed-! An ache wrung Covenant's heart. No!
"Though your arm was terrible and black, your white ring spun a great fire. The bonds dropped from you. The wood was scattered. The Sunbane-warped were cast aside like chaff, and fled in terror. Rocks were riven from the escarpment. Only this Demondim-spawn stood scatheless amid the fire.
“The power ended as you fell. Perceiving your venom-ill, we bore you here, and the Waynhim tended you with all their cunning until your death receded from you. Here you are safe until your strength returns.”
Hamako fell silent. After studying Covenant for a moment, he rose to his feet and began to depart.
“The Raver?” Covenant gritted.
“All spoor of him is gone,” Hamako replied quietly. “I fear his purpose was accomplished.”
Or else he's afraid of me, Covenant rasped inwardly. He did not see Hamako leave the chamber. He was consumed by his thoughts. Damnation! First Marid, then the bees, now this. Each attack worse than the one before. And a Raver involved each time. Hell and blood! Why? Bile rose in him. Why else? Lord Foul did not want him dead, not if his ring might fall to a Raver. The Despiser wanted something entirely different. He wanted surrender, voluntary abdication. Therefore the purpose of these attacks lay in their effect on him, in the way they drew power from his delirium, violence over which he had no control.
No control!
Was Foul trying to scare him into giving up his ring?
God bloody damn it to hell! He had always felt an almost overwhelming distrust of power. In the past, he had reconciled himself to the might with which he had defeated Lord Foul only because he had refrained from making full use of it; rather than attempting to crush the Despiser utterly, he had withheld the final blow, though in so doing he had ensured that Lord Foul would rise to threaten the Land again. Deliberately, he had made himself culpable for Lord Foul's future ill. And he had chosen that course because the alternative was so much worse.
For he believed that Lord Foul was part of himself, an embodiment of the moral peril lurking for the outcast in the complex rage against being outcast, a leper's doom of Despite for everything including himself. Restraint was the only possible escape from such a doom. If he had allowed his power to rise unchecked, committed himself completely to wild magic in his battle against Lord Foul, he would have accomplished nothing but the feeding of his own inner Despiser. The part of him which judged, believed, affirmed, was the part which refrained. Utter power, boundless and unscrupulous rage, would have corrupted him, and he would have changed in one stroke from victim to victimizes He knew how easy it was for a man to become the thing he hated.
Therefore he profoundly feared his wild magic, his capacity for power and violence. And that was precisely the point of Foul's attack. The venom called up his might when he was beyond all restraint-called it up and increased it. In Mithil Stonedown, he had almost failed to light Sunder's orcrest; but two days ago he had apparently broken boulders. Without volition.
And still he did not know why. Perhaps in saving Joan, he had sold himself; perhaps he was no longer free. But no lack of freedom could force him to surrender. And every increase in his power improved his chances of besting the Despiser again.
His danger lay in the venom, the loss of restraint. But if he could avoid further relapses, learn control-He was a leper. Control and discipline were the tools of his life. Let Lord Foul consider that before he counted his victory.
With such thoughts, Covenant grew grim and calm. Slowly, the effects of his illness came over him. The scent of the grass soothed him like an anodyne. After a time, he slept.
When Hamako nudged him awake again, he had the impression that he had slept for a long time. Nothing in the chamber had changed; yet his instincts were sure. Groaning at the way everything conspired to increase the peril of his friends, he groped into a sitting position, “How many days have I lost now?”
Hamako placed a large bowl of the dark, musty liquid in Covenant's hands. “You have been among us for three days of the sun of pestilence,” he answered. “Dawn is not yet nigh, but I have awakened you because there is much I wish to show and say before you depart. Drink.”
Three days. Terrific! Dismally, Covenant took a deep swallow from the bowl.
But as the liquid passed into him, he recognized the improvement in his condition. He held the bowl steadily: his whole body felt stable. He looked up at Hamako. To satisfy his curiosity, he asked, “What is this stuff?”
“It is vitrim.” Hamako was smiling: he seemed pleased by what he saw in Covenant. “It resembles an essence of aliantha, but has been created by the lore of the Waynhim rather than drawn, from the aliantha itself.”
In a long draught, Covenant drained the bowl, and felt immediately more substantial. He returned the bowl, and rose to his feet. “When can I get started? I'm running out of excuses.”
“Soon after the sun's rising, you will renew your sojourn,” answered Hamako. “I assure you that you will hold your days among us in scant regret.” He handed the bowl to a Waynhim standing nearby and accepted a leather pouch like a wineskin. This he gave to Covenant. “Vitrim,” he said. “If you consume it prudently, you will require no other aliment for three days.”
Covenant acknowledged the gift with a nod and tied the pouch to his belt by its drawstring. As he did so, Hamako said, “Thomas Covenant, it pains me that we have refused to answer your most urgent questions. Therefore I desire you to comprehend the Weird of the Waynhim ere you depart. Then perhaps you will grasp my conviction that their wisdom must be trusted. Are you willing?”
Covenant faced Hamako with a rueful grimace. “Hamako, you saved my life. I may be a natural-born ingrate, but I can still appreciate the significance of not being dead. I'll try to understand anything you want to tell me.” Half involuntarily, he added, “Just don't take too long. If I don't do something soon, I won't be able to live with myself.”
“Then come,” Hamako said, and strode out of the chamber.
Covenant paused to tuck in his shirt, then followed.
As he stooped to pass through the entryway, he noted sourly that Vain was right behind him.
He found himself in a corridor, scrupulously delved out of native rock, where he could barely walk erect. The passage was long, and lit at intervals by small censers set into the walls. In them, a dark fluid burned warmly, without smoke.
After some distance, the passage branched, became a network of tunnels. As Covenant and Hamako passed, they began to meet Waynhim. Some went by in silence; others exchanged a few comments with Hamako in their roynish tongue; but all of them bowed to the ring-wielder.
Abruptly, the tunnel opened into an immense cavern. It was brightly-lit by vats of burning liquid. It appeared to be more than a hundred feet high and three times that across. At least a score of Waynhim were busily at work around the area.
With a thrill of astonishment, Covenant saw that the whole cavern was a garden.
Thick grass covered the floor. Flowerbeds lay everywhere, hedged by many different varieties of bushes. Trees-pairs of Gilden, oak, peach, sycamore, elm, apple, jacaranda, spruce, and others-stretched their limbs toward the vaulted ceiling. Vines and creepers grew up the walls.
The Waynhim were tending the plants. From plot to tree they moved, barking chants and wielding short iron staves; and dark droplets of power sprang from the metal, nourishing flowers and shrubs and vines like a distilled admixture of loam and sunshine.
The effect was incomparably strange. On the surface of the Land, the Sunbane made everything unnatural; nothing grew without violating the Law of its own being, nothing died without ruin. Yet here, where there was no sunlight, no free air, no pollinating insects, no age-nurtured soil, the garden of the Waynhim blossomed lush and lovely, as natural as if these plants had been born to fructify under a stone sky.