Read Online The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War by Stephen R. Donaldson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stephen R. Donaldson
Tags: Fantasy
Ads: Link
end to end, drawing the people together, warning them, building what lore we have. I have braved the Shattered Hills, and fought on the mange of Hotash Slay-but of that I do not speak. I brought back knowledge of the Ravens.
Dukkha alone did not move us to summon you.”
Even in the direct beam of the sun, the word Ravens gave Covenant a chill he could not suppress. Remembering the other Waynhim he had seen, dead, with an iron spike through its heart-killed by a Raven-he asked, “What about them? What did you learn?”
“Much or little,” Mhoram sighed, “according to the uses of the knowledge. The importance of this lore cannot be mistaken-and yet its value eludes us.
“While you were last in the Land, we learned that the Ravens were still aboard-that like their master they had not been undone by the Ritual of Desecration, which Kevin Landwaster wreaked in his despair. Some knowledge of these beings had come to us through the old legends, the Lore of the First Ward, and the teachings of the Giants. We knew that they were named Sheol, Jehannum, and Herem, and that they lived without bodies, feeding upon the souls of others. When the Despiser was powerful enough to give them strength, they enslaved creatures or people by entering into their bodies, subduing their wills, and using the captured flesh to enact their master’s purposes. Disguised in forms not their own, they were well hidden, and so could gain trust among their foes. By that means, many brave defenders of the Land were lured to their deaths in the age of the Old Lords.
“But I have learned more. There near Foul’s Creche, I was beaten-badly overmastered. I fled through the Shattered Hills with only the staff of Variol my father between me and death, and could not prevent my foe from laying hands upon me. I had thought that I was in battle with a supreme loremaster of the ur-viles. But I learned-I learned otherwise.”,
Lord Mhoram stared unseeing into the depths of the sky, remembering with grim, concentrated eyes what had happened to him. After a moment, he continued: “It was a Raven I fought-a Raven in the flesh of an ur-vile. The touch of its hand taught me much.
In the oldest time-beyond the reach of our most hoary legends, even before the dim time of the coming of men to the Land, and the cruel felling of the One Forest-the Colossus of the Fall had both power and purpose. It stood on Landsdrop like a forbidding fist over the Lower Land, and with the might of the -‘ Forest denied a dark evil from the Upper Land.”
Abruptly, he broke into a slow song like a lament, a quiet declining hymn which told the story of the Colossus as the Lords had formerly known it, before the son of Variol had gained his new knowledge. In restrained sorrow over lost glory, the song described the Colossus of the Fall — the huge stone monolith, upraised in the semblance of a fist, which stood beside the waterfall where the River Landrider of the Plains of Ra became the Ruinwash of the Spoiled Plains.
Since a time that was ancient before Berek Lord
Fatherer lost half his hand, the Colossus had stood in -lone somber guard above the cliff of Landsdrop; and the oldest hinted legends of the Old Lords told of a ‘ time, during the ages of the One Forest’s dominion in the Land, when that towering fist had held the power to forbid the shadow of Despite-held it, and did not wane until the felling of the Forest by that unsuspected enemy, man, had cut too deeply to be halted. But then, outraged and weakened by the slaughter of the trees, the Colossus had unclasped its interdict, and let the shadow free. From that time, from the moment of that offended capitulation, the Earth had slowly lost the power or the will or the chance to defend itself.
So the burden of resisting the Despiser had fallen to a race which had brought the shadow upon itself, and the Earth lay under the outcome.
“But it was not Despite which the Colossus resisted,” Mhoram resumed when his song
Dukkha alone did not move us to summon you.”
Even in the direct beam of the sun, the word Ravens gave Covenant a chill he could not suppress. Remembering the other Waynhim he had seen, dead, with an iron spike through its heart-killed by a Raven-he asked, “What about them? What did you learn?”
“Much or little,” Mhoram sighed, “according to the uses of the knowledge. The importance of this lore cannot be mistaken-and yet its value eludes us.
“While you were last in the Land, we learned that the Ravens were still aboard-that like their master they had not been undone by the Ritual of Desecration, which Kevin Landwaster wreaked in his despair. Some knowledge of these beings had come to us through the old legends, the Lore of the First Ward, and the teachings of the Giants. We knew that they were named Sheol, Jehannum, and Herem, and that they lived without bodies, feeding upon the souls of others. When the Despiser was powerful enough to give them strength, they enslaved creatures or people by entering into their bodies, subduing their wills, and using the captured flesh to enact their master’s purposes. Disguised in forms not their own, they were well hidden, and so could gain trust among their foes. By that means, many brave defenders of the Land were lured to their deaths in the age of the Old Lords.
“But I have learned more. There near Foul’s Creche, I was beaten-badly overmastered. I fled through the Shattered Hills with only the staff of Variol my father between me and death, and could not prevent my foe from laying hands upon me. I had thought that I was in battle with a supreme loremaster of the ur-viles. But I learned-I learned otherwise.”,
Lord Mhoram stared unseeing into the depths of the sky, remembering with grim, concentrated eyes what had happened to him. After a moment, he continued: “It was a Raven I fought-a Raven in the flesh of an ur-vile. The touch of its hand taught me much.
In the oldest time-beyond the reach of our most hoary legends, even before the dim time of the coming of men to the Land, and the cruel felling of the One Forest-the Colossus of the Fall had both power and purpose. It stood on Landsdrop like a forbidding fist over the Lower Land, and with the might of the -‘ Forest denied a dark evil from the Upper Land.”
Abruptly, he broke into a slow song like a lament, a quiet declining hymn which told the story of the Colossus as the Lords had formerly known it, before the son of Variol had gained his new knowledge. In restrained sorrow over lost glory, the song described the Colossus of the Fall — the huge stone monolith, upraised in the semblance of a fist, which stood beside the waterfall where the River Landrider of the Plains of Ra became the Ruinwash of the Spoiled Plains.
Since a time that was ancient before Berek Lord
Fatherer lost half his hand, the Colossus had stood in -lone somber guard above the cliff of Landsdrop; and the oldest hinted legends of the Old Lords told of a ‘ time, during the ages of the One Forest’s dominion in the Land, when that towering fist had held the power to forbid the shadow of Despite-held it, and did not wane until the felling of the Forest by that unsuspected enemy, man, had cut too deeply to be halted. But then, outraged and weakened by the slaughter of the trees, the Colossus had unclasped its interdict, and let the shadow free. From that time, from the moment of that offended capitulation, the Earth had slowly lost the power or the will or the chance to defend itself.
So the burden of resisting the Despiser had fallen to a race which had brought the shadow upon itself, and the Earth lay under the outcome.
“But it was not Despite which the Colossus resisted,” Mhoram resumed when his song
Similar Books
