The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War by Stephen R. Donaldson Read Free Book Online Page B

of Ridjeck Thome, Foul’s Creche, the Gray Slayer’s ancient home. And since that time, our scouts have been unable to penetrate Lord Foul’s demesne.
    Power has been at work there-power and ill-but we could learn nothing of it, though Lord Mhoram himself assayed the task. He could not breach the Despiser’s forbidding might.
    “But there have been dim and dark foreboding movements throughout the Land.
    Kresh from the east and ur-viles from Mount Thunder, griffins and other dire creatures from Sarangrave Flat, Cavewights, little-known denizens of Lifeswallower, the Great Swamp-we have heard them all wending toward the Spoiled Plains and Foul’s Creche.
    They disappear beyond the Shattered Hills, and do not return. We need no great wisdom to teach us that the Despiser prepares his army. But still we have lacked clear knowledge.
    Then at last knowledge came to us. During the summer, our scouts captured this creature, this broken remnant of a Waynhim, on the western edges of Grirrimerdhore Forest. It was brought here so that we might try to gain tidings from it.”
    “So you tortured it to find out what it knows.” Covenant’s eyes were sticky with blood, and he kept them shut, giving himself up to useless rage and mist.
    “Do you believe that of us?” The High Lord sounded hurt. “No. We are not Despisers. We would not so betray the Land. We have treated the Waynhim as gently as we could without releasing it. It has told us willingly all that we would know. Now it begs us to kill it. Unbeliever, hear me. This is Lord Foul’s handiwork. He possesses the Illearth Stone. This is the work of that bane.”
    Through the grayness in his mind, Covenant heard the doors open again. Someone came down the stairs and whispered with Lord Mhoram. Then Mhoram said, “High Lord, hurtloam has been brought for the Unbeliever. I fear that his wound extends far beyond this simple cut. There is other ill at work in him. He must be tended without delay.”
    “Yes, at once,” High Lord Elena responded promptly. “We must do all that we can to heal him.”
    With a steady stride, Mhoram came toward Covenant.
    At the thought of hurtloam, Covenant pushed himself away from the wall, rubbed the caked blood out of his eyes. He saw Mhoram holding a small stoneware bowl containing a light mud spangled with gold gleams that seemed to throb in the glow of the Close.
    “Keep that stuff away from me,” he whispered.
    Mhoram was taken aback. “This is hurtloam, ur-Lord. It is the healing soil of the Earth. You will be renewed by it.”
    “I know what it does!” Covenant’s voice was raw from all the shouting he had done, and it sounded spectral and empty, like the creaking of a derelict. “I’ve had it before. You put that stuff on my head, and before you know it the feeling comes back into my fingers and toes, and I go around ra — ” He barely caught himself. “Hurting people.”
    He heard Elena. say softly, “I know,” but he disregarded her.
    “That’s the real lie,” he snarled at the bowl, “that stuff there. That’s what makes me feel so healthy I can’t stand it.” He took a long breath, then said fervidly, “I don’t want it.”
    Mhoram held Covenant in a gaze intense with questions. And when Covenant did not waver, the Lord asked in a low voice, a tone of amazement, “My friend, do you wish to die?”
    “Use it on that poor devil over there,” Covenant replied dully. “It’s got a right to it.”
    Without bending the straitness of his look, Mhoram said, “We have made the attempt. You have known us, Unbeliever. You know that we could not refuse the plea of such distress. But the Waynhim is beyond all our succor. Our Healers cannot approach its inner wound. And it nearly died at the touch of hurtloam,”
    Still Covenant did not relent.
    Behind him, High Lord Elena continued what Mhoram had been saying. “Even the Staff of Law cannot match the power which has warped this Waynhim. Such is our plight, ur-Lord. The