Shortly, his companions gathered around him. The Giants left their delighted study of Revelstone to clear the ground, start a fire, and prepare food. Sunder and Hollian cast repeated glances like wincing toward the Keep, where the ill of then lives had its centre, and where they had once nearly been slain; but they sat with Covenant as if he were a source of courage. The Haruchai arranged themselves protectively around the region. Findail stood like a shadow at the edge of the growing firelight.
Linden's disquiet was palpable. Vexation creased her brows; her gaze searched the twilight warily Covenant guessed that she was feeling the nearness of the Raver; and he did not know how to comfort her. During all the Land's struggles against Despite, no one had ever found a way to slay a Raver. While Lord Foul endured, his servants clung to life. The Forestal of Garroting Deep, Caer-Caveral’s creator and former master, had demonstrated that Herem or Sheol or Jehannum might be sorely hurt or reduced if the bodies they occupied were killed and they were not allowed to flee. But only the body died; the Raver's spirit survived Covenant could not believe that the Land would ever be free of Gibbon's possessor. And he did not know what else to offer that might ease Linden.
But then she named the immediate cause of her unease; and it was not the na-Mhoram. Turning to Covenant, she said unexpectedly, “Vain's gone.”
Taken aback, he blinked at her for a moment. Then he surged to his feet, scanned the camp and the surrounding jungle.
The Demondim-spawn was nowhere in sight.
Covenant wheeled toward Cail. Flatly, the Haruchai said, “He has halted a stone's throw distant.” He nodded back the way the company had come. “At intervals we have watched him, but he does not move. Is it your wish that he should be warded?”
Covenant shook his head, groping for comprehension. When he and Vain had approached Revelstone looking for Linden, Sunder, and Hollian, the Clave had tried to keep Vain out and had hurt him in the process. Yet he had contrived his way into the Keep, found the heels of the Staff of Law. But after that he had obeyed the Riders as if he feared what they could do to him. Was that it? Having obtained what he wanted from Revelstone, he now kept his distance so that the Clave would not be able to damage him again?
But how was it possible that the Demondim-spawn could be harmed at all, when the Sunbane did not affect him and even Grim-fire simply rolled off his black skin?
“It's because of what he is,” Linden murmured as though Covenant's question were tangible in the air. They had discussed the matter at other times; and she had suggested that perhaps the Clave knew more about Vain than the company did. But now she had a different answer. “He's a being of pure structure. Nothing but structure-like a skeleton without any muscle or blood or life. Rigidness personified. Anything that isn't focused straight at him can't touch him.” Slowly, as if she were unconscious of what she was doing, she turned toward Revelstone, lifted her face to the lightless Keep. “But that's what the Sunbane does. What the Clave does. They corrupt Law-disrupt structure. Desecrate order. If they tried hard enough”- she was glowering as if she could see Gibbon waiting in his malice and his glee- “they could take him apart completely, and there wouldn't be enough of him left to so much as remember why he was made in the first place. No wonder he doesn't want to come any closer.”
Covenant held his breath, hoping that she would go on-that in this mood of perception or prophecy she would name the purpose for which Vain had been created. But she did not.
By degrees, she lowered her gaze. “Damn that bastard anyway,” she muttered softly. “Damn him to hell.”
He echoed her in silence. Vain was such an enigma that Covenant continually forgot him-forgot how vital he was, to the hidden machinations of the Elohim if not to the safety of the Earth. But here Findail had not hesitated to leave the Demondim-spawn's side; and his anguished yellow eyes showed no interest in anything except the hazard of Covenant's fire. Covenant felt a prescient itch run through his forearm. Wincing, he addressed Cail.
“Don't bother. He'll take care of himself. He always has.”
Then he went sourly back to his seat near the fire.
The companions remained still as they ate supper, chewing their separate thoughts with their food. But when they were done, the First faced Covenant across the smoking blaze and made a gesture of readiness. “Now, Earthfriend.” Her tone reminded him of a polished blade, eager for use. “Let us speak of this proud and dire Keep.”
Covenant met her gaze and grimaced in an effort to hold his personal extremity beyond the range of Linden's percipience.
“It is a doughty work,” the First said firmly. “In it the Unhomed wrought surpassingly well. Its gates have been broken by a puissance that challenges conception-but if I have not been misled, there are gates again beyond the tower. And surely you have seen that the walls will not be scaled. We would be slain in the attempt. The Clave is potent, and we are few. Earthfriend,” she concluded as if she were prepared to trust whatever explanation he gave, “how do you purpose to assail this donjon?”
In response, he scowled grimly. He had been expecting that question-and dreading it. If he tried to answer it as if he were sane, his resolve might snap like a rotten bone. His friends would be appalled. And perhaps they would try to stop him. Even if they did not, he felt as certain as death that their dismay would be too much for him.
Yet some reply was required of him. Too many lives depended on what he meant to do. Stalling for courage, he looked toward Hollian. His voice caught in his throat as he asked, "What kind of sun are we going to have tomorrow?”
Dark hair framed her mien, and her face itself was smudged with the dirt of long travel; yet by some trick of the firelight-or of her nature-she appeared impossibly clear, her countenance unmuddied by doubt or despair. Her movements were deft and untroubled as she accepted the krill from Sunder, took out her lianar, and invoked the delicate flame of her foretelling.
After a moment, fire bloomed from her wand. Its colour was the dusty hue of the desert sun.
Covenant nodded to himself. A desert sun. By chance or design, he had been granted the phase of the Sunbane he would have chosen for his purpose. On the strength of that small grace, he was able to face the First again.
“Before we risk anything else, I'm going to challenge Gibbon. Try to get him to fight me personally. I don't think he'll do it,” though surely the Raver would covet the white ring for itself and might therefore be willing to defy its master's will, “but if he does, I can break the Clave's back without hurting anybody else.” Even though Gibbon held the whole force of the Banefire; Covenant was ready for that as well.
But the First was not content. “And if he does not?” she asked promptly. “If he remains within his fastness and dares us to harm him?”
Abruptly, Covenant lurched to his feet. Linden's gaze followed him with a flare of alarm as she caught a hint of what drove him; but he did not let her speak. Pieces of moonlight filtered through the dense leaves; and beyond the trees the moon was full-stretched to bursting with promises he could not keep. Above him, the walls and battlements of Revelstone held the silver light as if they were still beautiful. He could not bear it Though he was choking, he rasped out, “I'll think of something.” Then he fled the camp, went blundering through the brush until he reached its verge on the foothills.
The great Keep towered there, as silent and moon ridden as a cairn for all the dreams it had once contained. No illumination of life showed from it anywhere. He wanted to cry out at it, What have they done to you? But he knew the stone would not hear him. It was deaf to him, blind to its own desecration-as helpless against evil as the Earth itself. The thought that he might hurt it made him tremble.