“How many-?” His voice tore the silence clenched in his throat. “How many of them did I kill?”
Brinn responded dispassionately out of the night, “One score and one, ur-Lord.”
Twenty-one? Oh, God!
For an instant, he thought that the sinews of his soul would rend, must rend, that his joints would be ripped asunder. But then a great shout of power blasted through his chest, and white flame erupted toward the heavens.
Glimmermere repeated the concussion. Suddenly, the whole surface of the lake burst into fire. Flame mounted in a gyre; the water of the lake whirled. And from the centre of the whirl came a clear white beam in answer to his call.
The krill rose into view. It shone, bright and inviolate, in the heart of the lake-a long double-edged dagger with a translucent gem forged into the cross of its guards and haft. The light came from its gem, reiterating Covenant's fire, as if the jewel and his ring were brothers. The night was cast back by its radiance, and by his power, and by the high flames of Glimmermere.
Still the krill was beyond reach. But he did not hesitate now. The whirl of the water and the gyring flames spoke to him of things which he understood: vertigo and paradox; the eye of stability in the core of the contradiction. Opening his arms to the fire, he stepped out into the lake.
Earthpower upheld him. Conflagration which replied to his conflagration spun around him and through him, and bore his weight. Floating like a flicker of shadow through the argence, he walked toward the centre of Glimmermere.
In his weakness, he felt that the fire would rush him out of himself, reduce him to motes of mortality and hurl him at the empty sky. The krill seemed more substantial than his flesh; the iron more full of meaning than his wan bones. But when he stooped to it and took hold of it, it lifted in his hands and arced upward, leaving a slash of brilliance across the night.
He clutched it to his chest and turned back toward Brinn.
Now his fatigue closed over him. No longer could he keep his power alight. The fingers of his will unclawed their grip and failed. At once, the flames of Glimmermere began to subside.
But still the lake upheld him. The Earthpower gave him this gift as it had once gifted Berek Halfhand's despair on the slopes of Mount Thunder. It sustained him, and did not let him go until he stumbled to the shore in darkness.
Night lay about him and in him. His eyes descried nothing but the dark as if they had been burned out of his head. Even the shining of the gem seemed to shed no illumination. Shorn now of power, he could no longer grasp the krill. It became hot in his hands, hot enough to touch the nerves which still lived. He dropped it to the ground, where it shone like the last piece of light in the world. Mutely, he knelt beside it, with his back to Glimmermere as if he had been humbled. He felt alone in the Land, and incapable of himself.
But he was not alone. Brinn tore a strip from his tunic-a garment made from an ochre material which resembled vellum-and wrapped the krill so that it could be handled. For a moment, he placed a gentle touch on Covenant's shoulder. Then he said quietly, “Ur-Lord, come. The Clave will attempt to strike against us. We must go.”
As the gleam of the krill was silenced, the darkness became complete. It was a balm to Covenant, solace for the aggrievement of power. He ached for it to go on assuaging him forever. But he knew Brinn spoke the truth. Yes, he breathed. We must go. Help me.
When he raised his head, he could see the stars. They glittered as if only their own beauty could console them for their loneliness. The moon was rising. It was nearly full.
In silence and moonlight, Covenant climbed to his feet and began to carry his exhaustion back toward Revelstone.
After a few steps, he accepted the burden of the krill from Brinn and tucked it under his belt. Its warmth rested there like a comfort against the knotted self-loathing in his stomach.
Stumbling and weary, he moved without knowing how he could ever walk as far as Revelstone. But Brinn aided him, supported him when he needed help, let him carry himself when he could. After a time that passed, like the sequences of delirium, they gained the promontory and the mouth of the na-Mhoram's Keep.
One of the Haruchai awaited them outside the tunnel which led down into Revelstone. As Covenant lurched to a halt, the Haruchai bowed; and Brinn said, “Ur-Lord, this is Ceer.”
“Ur-Lord,” Ceer said.
Covenant blinked at Mm, but could not respond. He seemed to have no words left.
Expressionlessly, Ceer extended a leather pouch toward him.
He accepted it. When he unstopped the pouch, he recognized the smell of metheglin. At once, he began to drink. His drained body was desperate for fluid. Desperate. He did not lower the pouch until it was empty.
“Ur-Lord,” Ceer said then, “the Clave gathers about the Banefire. We harry them, and they make no forays-but there is great power in their hands. And four more of the Haruchai have been slain. We have guided all prisoners from Revelstone. We watch over them as we can. Yet they are not safe. The Clave holds coercion to sway our minds, if they but choose to exert it. We know this to our cost. We must flee.”
Yes, Covenant mumbled inwardly. Flee. I know. But when he spoke, the only word he could find was, “Linden-?”
Without inflection, Ceer replied, “She has awakened.”
Covenant did not realize that he had fallen until he found himself suspended in Brinn's arms. For a long moment, he could not force his legs to straighten. But the metheglin helped him. Slowly, he took his own weight, stood upright again.
“How-?”
“Ur-Lord, we strove to wake her.” Suppressing the lilt of his native tongue to speak Covenant's language made Ceer sound completely detached. “But she lay as the dead, and would not be succoured. We bore her from the Keep, knowing not what else to do. Yet your black companion-” He paused, asking for a name.
“Vain,” Covenant said, almost choking on the memory of that grin. “He's an ur-vile.”
A slight contraction of his eyebrows expressed Ceer's surprise; but he did not utter his thoughts aloud. “Vain,” he resumed, “stood by unheeding for a time. But then of a sudden he approached Linden Avery the Chosen.” Dimly, Covenant reflected that the Haruchai must already have spoken to Sunder or Hollian. “Knowing nothing of him, we strove to prevent him. But he cast us aside as if we were not who we are. He knelt to the Chosen, placed his hand upon her. She awakened.”
A groan of incomprehension and dread twisted Covenant's throat; but Ceer went on. “Awakening, she cried out and sought to flee. She did not know us. But the Stonedownors your companions comforted her. And still”- a slight pause betrayed Ceer's uncertainty — "Vain had not done. Ur-Lord, he bowed before her-he, who is heedless of the Haruchai, and deaf to all speech. He placed his forehead upon her feet.
“This was fear to her,” Ceer continued. “She recoiled to the arms of the Stonedownors. They also do not know this Vain. But they stood to defend her if need be. He rose to his feet, and there he stands yet, still unheeding, as a man caught in the coercion of the Clave. He appears no longer conscious of the Chosen, or of any man or woman.”
Ceer did not need to speak his thought; Covenant could read it in his flat eyes.
We do not trust this Vain.
But Covenant set aside the question of Vain. The krill was warm against his belly; and he had no strength for distractions. His path was clear before him, had been clear ever since he had absorbed the meaning of the soothtell. And Linden was awake. She had been restored to him. Surely now he could hold himself together long enough to set his purpose in motion.