Stephen Donaldson: White Gold Wielder

“Never!” Lord Foul shouted instantly Might leaped in him, wild for use. “I know not what chicane or madness has brought you before me from the Dead-but it will not avail! You have once cast me down! I will not suffer a second debasement! Never! The white gold is mine, freely given! If you combat me. Death itself will not ward you from my Wrath!”

Something like a smile sharpened the spectre’s acute face. "I keep telling you you're wrong. I wouldn't dream of fighting you.”

Lord Foul's retort was a bolt that sizzled the air like frying meat. Power fierce enough to blow off the crown of the peak sprang at Covenant, raging for his immolation.

He did not oppose it, made no effort to resist or evade the attack. He simply accepted it The clench of pain between his brows showed that he was hurt; but he did not flinch. The blast raved and scourged into him until Linden feared that even a dead soul could not survive it. Yet when it ended he had taken it all upon himself. Bravely, be stood forth from the fire.

“I'm not going to fight you.” Even now, he seemed to pity his slayer. “All you can do is hurt me. But pain doesn't last. It just makes me stronger.” His voice held a note of sorrow for the Despiser. “Put down the ring.”

But Lord Foul was so far gone in fury and frustration that he might have been deaf. “No!” he roared again. No fear hampered him: he was transported to the verge of absolute violence.

“No!”

“ NO! ”

And with every cry he flung his utterest force against the Unbeliever.

Blast after blast, faster and faster. Enough white power to bring Mount Thunder down in rubble, cast it off Landsdrop into the ruinous embrace of Sarangrave Flat. Enough to leave the One Tree itself in ash and cinders. Enough to shatter the Arch of Time. All Lord Foul's ancient puissance was multiplied and channelled by the argent ring. He struck and struck, the unanswerable knell of his hunger adumbrating through Kiril Threndor until Linden's mind reeled and her life almost stopped, unable to support the magnitude of his rage. She clung to Covenant's body as if it were her last anchor and fought to endure and stay sane while Lord Foul strove to rip down the essential definition of the Earth.

But each assault hit nothing except the spectre, hurt nothing except Covenant. Blast after blast, he absorbed the power of Despite and fire and became stronger: Surrendering to their savagery, he transcended them. Every blow elevated him from the mere grieving spectation of the Dead in Andelain, the ritualized helplessness of the Unhomed in Coercr i, to the stature of pure wild magic. He became an unbreakable bulwark raised like glory against destruction.

At the same time, each attack made Lord Foul weaker Covenant was a barrier the Despiser could not pierce because it did not resist him; and he could not stop. After so many millennia of yearning, defeat was intolerable to him. In accelerating frenzy, he flung rage and defiance and immitigable hate at Covenant. Yet each failed blow cost him more of himself. His substance frayed and thinned, denatured moment by moment, as his attacks grew more reckless and extravagant. Soon he had reduced himself to such evanescence that he was barely visible.

And still he did not stop. Surrender was impossible for him. If he had not been limited and confined by the mortal Time of his prison, he would have gone on forever, seeking Covenant's eradication. For a while, his form guttered and wailed as complete fury drove him to the threshold of banishment. Then he failed and went out. Though she was stunned and stricken. Linden heard the faint metallic clink of the ring when it fell to the dais and rolled to a stop.

SLOWLY, silence settled like dust back into Kiril Threndor. Most of the rocklight had been extinguished, but pieces still flared along the facets of the walls, giving the chamber an obscure illumination. Without the cloying scent of attar, the brimstone atmosphere smelled almost clean. Holes gaped in the ceiling where many of the stalactites had hung. Long tremors still rumbled into the distance, but they were no longer dangerous. They subsided like sighs as they passed beyond Linden's percipience.

She sat cross-legged near the dais, with Covenant's head in her lap. No breath stirred his chest. He was already growing cold. The capacity for peril which had made him so dear to her had gone out. But she did not let him go. His face wore a grimace of defeat and victory-a strange fusion of commandment and grace-that was as close as he would ever come to peace.

She did not look up to meet the argent gaze of his revenant She did not need to see him bending over her as if his heart bled to comfort her. The simple sense of his presence was enough. In silence, she bowed over his body. Her eyes streamed at the beauty of what he had become.

For a long moment, his empathy breathed about her, clearing the last reek from the air, the taste of ruin from her lungs. Then he said her name softly. His voice was tender, almost human, as if he had not passed beyond the normal strictures of life and death. “I'm sorry.” He seemed to feel that it was he who needed her forgiveness, rather than she who ached for his. “I didn't know what else to do. I had to stop him.”

I understand, she answered. You were right Nobody else could’ve done it If she had possessed half his comprehension, a fraction of his courage, she might have tried to help him. There had been no other way. But she would have failed. She was too tainted by her own darkness for such pure sacrifices.

Nobody else, she repeated. But any moment now she was going to begin sobbing. She had lost him at last. When the true grief started, it might never stop.

Yet he had already passed beyond compassion into necessity. Or perhaps he felt the hurt rising in her and sought to answer it. As gentle as love, he said, “Now it's your turn. Pick up the ring.”

The ring. It lay at the edge of the dais perhaps ten feet from her. And it was empty-devoid of light or power-an endless silver-white band with no more meaning than an unused manacle. Without Covenant or Lord Foul to wield it, it had lost all significance.

She was too weak and lorn to wonder why Covenant wanted her to do something about his ring. If she had been given some reason to hope that his spirit and his flesh might be brought back to each other, she would have obeyed him. No frailty or incomprehension would have prevented her from obeying him. But those questions had already been answered. And she had no desire to let his body out of her embrace.

“Linden.” His emanations were soft and kind; but she felt their urgency growing. “Try to think. I know it's hard-after what you've been through. But try. I need you to save the Land.”

She could not look up at him. His dead face was all that remained to her, all that held her together. If she raised her head to his unbearable beauty, she would be lost as well. With her fingertips, she stroked the gaunt lines of his cheek. In silence, she said, I don't need to. You've already done it.

“No,” he returned at once. “I haven't” Every word made his tension clearer. “All I did was stop him. I haven't healed anything. The Sunbane is still there. It has a life of its own. And the Earthpower's been too badly corrupted. It can't recover by itself.” His tone went straight into her heart. “Linden, please. Pick up the ring.”

Into her heart, where a storm of lamentation brewed. Instinctively, she feared it. It seemed to rise from the same source which had given birth to her old hunger for darkness, I can't, she said. Gusts and rue tugged through her. You know what power does to me. I can't stop hurting the people I want to help. I'll just turn into another Raver.