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Covenant kept his back to her, but he was not studying her sculpture. He was listening to her voice as if he expected it to change at any moment into the voice of someone he knew. Her tone resonated with implicit meanings. But he could not make them out. Abruptly, he turned to meet her eyes. Again, though she faced him, she seemed to be looking at or thinking about something else, something beyond him. Her elsewhere glance disturbed him. Studying her, his frown deepened until he wore the healing of his forehead like a crown of thorns.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Will you sit?” she said quietly. “There is much I would speak of with you.”

“Like what?”

The hardness of his tone did not make her flinch, but she spoke more quietly still. “I hope to find a way to win your help against the Despiser.”

Thinking self-contemptuous thoughts, he retorted, “How far are you willing to go?”

For an instant, the other focus of her eyes came close to him, touched him like a lick of fire. Blood rushed to his face, and he almost recoiled a step-so strongly did he feel for that instant that she had the capacity to go far beyond anything he could imagine. But the glimpse passed before he could guess at what it was. She turned unhurriedly away, went briefly into one of her other rooms. When she returned, she bore in her hands a wooden casket bound with old iron.

Holding the casket as if it contained something precious, she said, "'The Council has been much concerned in this matter. Some said, `Such a gift is too great for anyone. Let it be kept and safe for as long as we may be able to endure.' And others said, `It will fail of its purpose, for he will believe that we seek to buy his aid with gifts. He will be angered against us, and will refuse.' So spoke Lord Mhoram, whose knowledge of the Unbeliever is more than any other's. But I said, `He is not our foe. He gives us no aid because he cannot give aid. Though he holds the white gold, its use is beyond him or forbidden him. Here is a weapon which surpasses us. It may be that he will be able to master it, and that with such a weapon he will help us, though he cannot use the white gold.'

"After much thought and concern, my voice prevailed. Therefore the Council asks to give you this gift, so that its power will not lie idle, but will turn against the Despiser.

“Ur-Lord Covenant, this is no light offering. Forty years ago, it was not in the possession of the Council. But the Staff of Law opened doors deep in Revelstone — doors which had been closed since the Desecration. The Lords hoped that these chambers contained other Wards of Kevin's Lore-but no Wards were there. Yet among many things of forgotten use or little power this was found-this which we offer to you.”

She pressed curiously on the sides of the casket, and the lid swung open, revealing a cushioned velvet interior, on which lay a short silver sword. It was a two edged blade, with straight guards and a ribbed hilt; and it was forged around a clear white gem, which occupied the junction of the blade, guards, and hilt. This gem looked strangely lifeless; it reflected no light from the graveling, as if it were impervious or dead to any ordinary flame.

With awe in her low voice, Elena said, “This is the krill of Loric Vilesilencer son of Damelon son of Berek. With this he slew the Demondim guise of moksha Raver, and delivered the Land from the first great peril of the ur-viles. Ur-Lord Covenant, Unbeliever and Ringthane, will you accept it?”

Slowly, full of a leper's fascinated dread of things that cut, Covenant lifted the krill from its velvet rest. Hefting it, he found that its balance pleased his hand, though his two fingers and thumb could not grip it well. Cautiously, he tested its edges with his thumb. They were as dull as if they had never been honed as dull as the white gem. For a moment, he stood still, thinking that a knife did not need to be sharp to harm him.

“Mhoram was right,” he said out of the dry, lonely hebetude of his heart. “I don't want any gifts. I've had more gifts than I can bear.”

Gifts! It seemed to him that everyone he had ever known in the Land had tried to give him gifts-Foamfollower, the Ranyhyn, — Lord Mhoram, even Atiaran. The Land itself gave him an impossible nerve-health. But the gift of Lena Atiaran-daughter was more terrible than all the others. He had raped her, raped! And afterward, she had gone into hiding so that her people would not learn what had happened to her and punish him. She had acted with an extravagant forbearance so that he could go free-free to deliver Lord Foul's prophecy of doom to the Lords. Beside that self-abnegation, even Atiaran's sacrifices paled.

Lena! he cried. A violence of grief and self-recrimination blazed up in him. “I don't want any more.” Thunder blackened his face. He grasped the krill in both fists, its blade pointing downward. With a convulsive movement, he stabbed the sword at the heart of the table, trying to break its blunt blade on the stone.

A sudden flash of white blinded him like an instant of lightning. The krill wrenched out of his hands. But he did not try to see what had happened to it. He spun instantly back to face Elena. Through the white dazzle that confused his sight, he panted, “No more gifts! I can't afford them!”

But she was not looking at him, not listening to him. She held her hands to her mouth as she stared past him at the table. “By the Seven!” she whispered. “What have you done?”

What-?

He whirled to look.

The blade of the krill had pierced the stone; it was embedded halfway to its guards in the table.

Its white gem burned like a star.

Dimly, he became conscious of a throbbing ache in his wedding finger. His ring felt hot and heavy, almost molten. But he ignored it; he was afraid of it. Trembling, he reached out to touch the krill.

Power burned his fingers.

Hellfire!

He snatched his hand away. The fierce pain made him clasp his fingers under his other arm, and groan.

At once, Elena turned to him. “Are you harmed?” she asked anxiously. “What has happened to you?”

“Don't touch me!” he gasped.

She recoiled in confusion, then stood watching him, torn between her concern for him and her astonishment at the blazing gem. After a moment, she shook herself as if throwing off incomprehension, and said softly, “Unbeliever-you have brought the krill to life.”

Covenant made an effort to match her, but his voice quavered as he said, “It won't make any difference. It won't do you any good. Foul's got all the power that counts.”

“He does not possess the white gold.”

“To hell with the white gold!”

“No!” she retorted vehemently. “Do not say such a thing. I have not lived my life for nothing. My mother, and her mother before her, have not lived for nothing!”

He did not understand her, but her sudden passion silenced him. He felt trapped between her and the krill; he did not know what to say or do. Helpless, he stared at the High Lord as her own emotions grew into speech.

“You say that this makes no difference-that it does no good. Are you a prophet? And if you are, what do you say that we should do? Surrender?” For an instant, her self-possession wavered, and she exclaimed furiously, “Never!” He thought that he heard hatred in her words. But then she lowered her voice, and the sound of loathing faded. “No! There is no one in the Land who could endure to stand aside and allow the Despiser to work his will. H we must suffer and die without hope, then we will do so. But we will not despair, though it is the Unbeliever himself who says that we must ”

Useless emotions writhed across his face, but he could not answer. His own conviction or energy had fallen into dust. Even the pain in his hand was almost gone. He looked away from her, then winced at the sharp sight of the krill. Slowly, as if he had aged in the past few moments, he lowered himself into a chair. “I wish,” he murmured blankly, emptily, “I wish I knew what to do.”